Miss Me Yet?
by Time's Whisper
Summary: Captain Cally Everet finds herself back on Earth after a device in the Atlantis labs does something drastic. She's without a team, without orders, and doesn't expect to go back. Will a new life beckon or will someone discover she's missing? Chapter 23 up
1. Aftermath of a Guinea Pig

Hi folks! New story! I know, I know I should finish my other one first, but I needed to write this one too! It just cried out to be penned!

The main character is Captain Cally Everet who was a part of the expedition, and now isn't for reasons that will soon become apparent (but maybe not in this chapter! grins evilly). Will be slight angst, but not too much! The story will take Cally far and wide, touching the universes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Torchwood and (maybe!) Doctor Who.

Disclaimer: No infringement intended. I own nothing but the candy bar fueling my writing process.

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Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 1: Aftermath of a Guinea Pig

_- Ok, I borrowed this video camera from the Atlantis media lab, so I could at least have some record of my actually _being _here. I don't know what's happening to me, but something's wrong. Really, really wrong. I don't know if anyone will find this, but I hope someone does someday. My name is Cally Everet; I'm a Captain in the United States Air Force, serial number 89732545. I've been with the expedition from the beginning and I am a member of SGA-6. -_

Cally softly placed her dog tags and a letter on General Landry's desk. He didn't look up from his paperwork. Not that would have, he couldn't even hear the clank as the metal disks – sans silencers- knocked together. If he could have seen her, he would have seen a jet brown haired Captain with tears in her eyes, duffle bag in hand, patches missing from her jacket's shoulders, and an arrow straight salute.

"Goodbye sir." Cally whispered, though she didn't need to. "I'll dismiss myself." She turned on her heel and left the office, left the Stargate program, forever.

No one noticed her sobbing through the halls.

_- For last six months, I've been unseen … there has to be a better way to explain this ...ok. I was sent to the science labs because the scientists wanted to test some devices they'd found, but they needed someone with the natural ATA gene to activate them. Colonel Sheppard was busy, so I got guinea pig duty… -_

Walking away from Cheyenne Mountain had felt like the hardest thing Cally had ever done. Including, capturing a Goa'uld mother ship. Now, two months after she had not only left the program, but had also the country, Cally realized that it wasn't.

London was a beautiful city, not as beautiful as Atlantis, no city was, but London had its own beauty. She'd even gotten used to the time difference fairly quickly, probably a side effect of frequent gate travel. Cally's days were spent walking along Oxford Street, buying her groceries from Marks & Spencers, and often generally loitering in the British Museum. She watched people, with her pale blue eyes looking curiously as she wondered how _calm_ people were, how they could walk around without the stress that she'd been under.

The higher salary she'd been given as a member of the Expedition kept her going, and would for a long time, so money wouldn't be a problem. Cally wasn't sure what sort of a job she'd be able to get if she needed a new one. Her last carrier, her only carrier aside from one week as a sales clerk in high school, had been an Air Force officer. She was sure she could become a barista or something later on down the line.

It hit her one day, as she was walking through the British Museum late one Monday afternoon, that leaving the Stargate program, while it had raised so many questions and doubts, hadn't been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.

In truth, the hardest thing she'd ever done, was still trying to do, was trying to deal with the memories of the life that she had left behind. True, she had returned to something that resembled a 'normal' life, even while half expecting to hear Wraith darts scream overhead or the sound of gunfire. Whenever she saw a plane in the sky, all Cally could think about was flying Puddlejumpers.

Currently, Cally was exiting a weapons exhibit at the BM. She smiled softly. Some of the weapons in the exhibit looked like Bashaak, the Jaffa training staffs. She had missed being around her old team at the SGC, but also missed her team back on Atlantis. It was doubtful she'd ever see them again.

Cally stopped to examine a case full of Ancient Egyptian necklaces, many with the eye of Ra on them. She smiled softly at some of the descriptions of the pieces. History was fun when you know more than the historians. Cally didn't know how long she'd been standing there, but she suddenly heard a voice that sounded close to her in the near empty hall.

"You again!" It sounded amused.

Cally turned around to see a tall, gray haired man in a business suit, eyes twinkling, and looking delightedly at her, as if he was trying to contain laughter.

"Me?" Cally blinked.

He smiled. "Yes, you, my dear. I see you hear almost every day. Are you a student?"

Cally smiled in embarrassment. "No, I'm just interested. I've learned a lot of history in the past few years and, I-" Cally glanced toward the necklaces. "Can't seem to get away from it."

He smiled. "That is not necessarily a bad thing." He held out a hand. "Myles Carter. I'm one of the curators here."

Cally's smiled flourished warmly and she readily took his hand. Myles noticed that her face, curiously wan, looked better when she smiled. "Captain Cally Everet." She winced slightly as she realized that she'd said her rank too.

Myles caught the wince, but still looked surprised. "Captain? Not of the Royal Air Force?"

"No, formerly United States Air Force." Cally admitted. "My accent gives me away?"

Myles shook his head. "Not exactly, during the war many Americans were pilots in the RAF. Why formerly may I ask?"

Cally sighed. "I needed a break," she smiled at the cases around her. "And found the perfect place to take one."

Myles smiled softly and in understanding. "Well, if you are free, would you like a more formal tour?"

Cally smiled, pleased. "Absolutely!"

Myles laughed when Cally was reluctant to leave the Museum before closing hours. They'd been having an in depth discussion over the collapse of Salisbury Hill in England. Myles had discovered that, astonishingly enough, his new acquaintance had majored in history while at the Air Force Academy in the US.

"Well, we can finish tomorrow can't we?" He suggested with a smile. "After all, you'll be here!"

Cally laughed. "Maybe! I might go wandering around the city tomorrow. Do you know any good pubs that I might be able to visit?"

"There are one or two." Myles rubbed his chin. "I'll send you a list, through email. Next time you come to the Museum, come see me, ask the secretary at the information desk to call me and we can go to lunch?"

Cally nodded agreement and left after exchanging emails with Myles, feeling her heart lifting. For the first time since she'd had the lab accident in the labs on Atlantis, she knew someone who could make her smile, who could talk to her. It felt good.

_- Doctor McKay said I'd be fine. He just strapped the device on my arm, like it was some sort of toy. It powered up, but nothing happened. Or so I thought… -_

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To be continued in Chapter 2! Let me know what you think! Reviews are the main staple of my diet! Please feed me! Holds out bowl I'm hungry!


	2. Finding Something Old

Note: Cally was a member of a team at the SGC before she volunteered to go on the Atlantis Expedition. This important for the rest of the story after this chapter!

This chapter is more of a filler for the next chapter where the plot really picks up, a month after Cally moved to London!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. No, really! I don't!

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Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 2: Finding Something Old

- _I started to realize something was wrong when after twenty minutes no one had come over to take readings, not even Doctors McKay or Zelenka. I tapped Doctor McKay on the shoulder, but he didn't turn around. I tried Doctor Zelenka next, but he did the same thing. After trying a few of the other scientists, I tried to talk to them…. _-

Cally heard a beeping sound and reached for her radio, only to touch her new cell phone. Her eyes snapped open as she grimaced.

"I am never going to get used to that." She swore and picked up the phone.

It was a text message from Myles. Cally's lips curled into a smile. She'd only met the curator a week ago, and he was already a good friend. He was her only friend in London so far, but that was slowly changing. Cally had gone to lunch with him the day after she'd met him. Victoria, Myles's retired and gorgeous wife, had come as well. Victoria had promised to show her the best stores in London, and to take her to Paris. It turned out that Victoria was not only retired, but a retired archeologist who'd been curious when Myles had told her about meeting 'Captain Cally Everet' wandering about the BM at all hours.

Myles's text message consisted of two words. "You're late!"

Cally, puzzled, called him back.

"Myles Carter." Myles's voice came through.

"I wasn't aware I had anywhere to be late to Myles." Cally was amused.

There was a chuckle. "I meant that you were late to the museum. I'm becoming so used to see you loitering in the Egyptian exhibits early in the morning that when I couldn't find you I was a bit worried."

Cally yawned softly. "Sorry, I slept in today." She checked her clock, it was ten am. "I haven't been able to do that for years."

Myles nodded, though Cally couldn't see him. "Due to military life, I'm assuming?"

"Something like that." Cally agreed, though the threat of nightmares, an aftereffect of being entirely too close to both Goa'uld and Wraith attacks on far too many occasions, was sometimes an issue.

"Well, have a good day. Victoria sends her love. Go back to sleep! You probably need it." He knew how much time she spent wandering London.

"You have no idea." Cally said wryly, mind drifting back to Atlantis's corridors, and wished her friend a good day as well, before hanging up. She held her phone in her hand as she drifted away, as if to assure herself that it was a phone, not a radio.

Cally slept until three without interruption, which was a blessing in itself, as the upstairs neighbors were usually loud, and crawled from her apartment in search of food.

London, still made her breathless. After wandering through a few back streets, Cally found herself in one of the many gardens near Buckingham Palace. It was March, she'd left the SGC in the middle of January, so it was still cold in England, while back home it would have started to thaw out slightly. It was almost always temperate on Lantea. She missed waking to the sight of the sea lapping over the piers.

The gardens were nice though flowers would improve them. Cally milled with the fast walking crowds easily, like a native rather than a tourist. Being on an SG team helped with that, since blending in was occasionally the best way not to get killed. She was still getting used to the noise a few million people could create. When she was hungry enough her feet carried her to a sandwich shop, where she bought a BLT, a food rapidly becoming a staple of her diet, and kept walking. Cally hummed as she walked. Real food was _so_ much better than MRE's.

As she walked, Cally wasn't able to loose the feeling of restlessness that had been creeping over her recently. Drifting in and out of the British Museum was interesting, but Cally was starting to get the feeling that she needed to do something... more. Going through the Stargate every week had generated plenty of paperwork to keep her busy, and coupled with her other duties, she'd had very little time to herself. Now, away from the Air Force, away from standing orders and Earth - saving tasks, Cally had no idea what to do with herself.

Around five, when most of the shops were closed or closing, Cally wandered past a music supply store, selling instruments and sheet music. The store clerk looked annoyed with her when she walked in, apparently ignoring the sign displaying closing times, but kept the store open in case she bought anything. After a few minutes, he noticed that she was lurking by the reams of music paper.

"Ye a composer?" He asked, coming over.

"I used to do a lot, nothing serious, but not much anymore." Cally touched the sheets wistfully. "I don't want to keep you. Are you open tomorrow?"

"Everyday luv."

Cally left with a few sheets of the blank sheet music, even though she knew she'd never use it. It was more an indulgence from high school than anything.

It had gotten dark out, and Cally knew an Indian restaurant near her flat, so she headed that way. Halfway there, while watching other women she own age, dressed to the nines, edge towards clubs, Cally noticed a few people heading towards a large pub. She followed them, paid the five pounds in the line for admission and entered a bright, cheerful and excited atmosphere.

The best way to get information, she'd discovered off-world, was to ask the barman what was happening in the area. When she sidled up to the bar, she yelled over the music at her. "What's going on? Is there a concert?"

The bartender blinked. "A Yank?" Then shrugged and pointed her brightly painted nails to the stage. "Live talent night. You want a drink or what?"

Cally got a beer, light because she hated the taste of anything else, and sat at the bar. The first band got on stage and as they opened their mouths to play, Cally felt a thought cascade into her mind.

She knew what the sheet music was for.

-_ You'd think they'd notice someone singing Deck the Halls in the middle of Lantean July, right? They left for lunch after the third rendition, and left me standing in the room, like I'd never been there. _-

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Sorry! Sorry! Slow chapter! I know! It will get better! Cally's still just adjusting! Next chapter will be better! 

Reviews? Attempts puppy eyes.

Thanks to JamieT19 for the review! Things will start to be made clear soon enough!


	3. The Irony of Choices

Hi folks! The third chapter! Throws confetti in the air. Isn't it grand?

Note: The plot now picks up! Sorry for the scientific scramble, but it's important!

Disclaimer: If I owned anything, it'd be a bowl of coffee ice cream. Well, I have to get my caffeine fix somehow don't I?

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Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 3: The Irony of Choices

Naquadah had to be the key. Cally looked tiredly down at the printouts she'd taken Ancient documents before leaving Atlantis on the Daedalus. It had to be the reason why people who'd never been anywhere near the Stargate could see her, like Myles.

She'd started out the night by trying to get back into the old rhythm of composing music, but like every night since the accident, since last July, Cally had drifted back to the contents of her hidden safe.

Half the problem was that she wasn't a scientist like Doctor McKay or a medical doctor like Carson Beckett. She was a pilot, plain and simple. She'd had the idea of becoming a doctor or engineer at the Air Force Academy, but it hadn't worked out.

The basics she knew. When you traveled through the Stargate, in either galaxy, you got naquadah in your bloodstream. It didn't have any major side effects for the most part, gate travel would have stopped long ago if there were any. Even people who'd only been around them for less than a week had some. The less exposure to the Gate you had, the less naquadah you had in your bloodstream. If she could find someone with minimal exposure to the gate, then she could see if she was right, that the device that had caused this mess affected naquadah or the brain.

Cally put the papers back together and back into the safe. It was early, or late, depending how you viewed three in the morning. Still, before she went to bed, Cally went back to her desk. Taking a plain piece of printer paper, as she bit her lip, wondering if what she was about to do was even a good idea. Finally she scrawled three words across the page, folded it, and sealed it in an envelope addressed to the SGC and the Expedition. Cally stared at the envelope, hoping rising in her heart as she set it down.

The words burned a hole in her pocket until she posted the letter the next morning.

* * *

Myles noticed that Cally seemed to walk with a bounce in her step when she bounded into his office on Wednesday morning.

"Good morning, Myles!" Cally smiled, setting a cup of coffee down on the desk.

"Good morning, Captain!" He liked to tease her by using her former rank, knowing fully well that Cally missed flying.

Cally rolled her eyes. He kept hinting that she should look in to joining a flight school as a teacher. Myles had even left RAF pamphlets around his office, where she could see them. Cally knew he was just concerned, but it got on her nerves occasionally. It had been a month since Cally had met the curator. He and Victoria had never had any children of their own, so they'd 'adopted' Cally, when Myles had questioned her and discovered that Cally was not in contact with any family members or friends.

Cally didn't want to explain that most of her friends were either in another galaxy and wouldn't be able to see her anyway. Cally didn't want to say anything about the accident either, despite Myles's attempts to question her. It hurt enough to think about the lonely months she'd spent wandering the halls of Atlantis, wishing with every day that the device she'd yanked off her arm in frustration would stop glowing, and everything would return to normal.

She sighed. "Myles, I've only been in London for two months, barely enough time to get situated. And… I still don't know what I'd do other than fly." She didn't want to say the other reason. There was still hope. Not that Cally really had any, but there was still was a chance, no matter how small, that the effects of the device would ware off, and someone would come looking for her.

When she'd walked around Atlantis, she could bump into people who'd just move along like she wasn't a physical presence. If she was in their way, they'd move around her, but not acknowledge that she was there. It was made even odder by the fact that this inability to see her even extended to things she'd written or was holding on to.

More out of frustration and a desire to fly rather than out of malicious intent, Cally had taken a Puddlejumper up and no one had noticed it missing. Doctor Zelenka had gotten in it after she'd landed it, so there wasn't a problem with things turning back to normal after she'd finished with them.

"What are you working on?" Cally went behind Myles and peeked over his shoulder at the pictures littered across his desk.

"An archeologist Victoria knows came across an odd box on a dig in Egypt, it has an Ancient Egyptian dialect on it that he's never seen before. The box is quite heavy as well. He hasn't touched it other than to clean it. Here." He handed her one of the images.

Cally nearly choked on air. The script on the box wasn't in Ancient Egyptian.

It was in Goa'uld.

Myles saw the former USAF Captain turn a creamy shade of white while her eyes gave a flicker of something he was sure he couldn't have seen.

It was a flicker of recognition.

Myles' mind swam for a moment. Cally had recognized the script? That wasn't possible! He'd already talked to three different linguists this morning, and they hadn't recognized the script, but they said they'd work on the writings, but had warned him that not much seemed possible since there was no existing reference point.

But if Cally had recognized it – no, that was even more impossible, Cally had been in the military, and the military certainly would not be interested in Egyptian artifacts.

Even so, her reaction was… interesting. Cally was still staring at the symbols on the box in something faintly akin to shock.

"Cally?" He asked hesitantly, as if she would fall to pieces if he pressed her for information.

Cally shook her head and realized what she'd been doing. She handed the photo back and replied in the most nonchalant voice she could muster. "That's weird Myles." She almost swore at the audible waver in her voice that still lingered.

"Yes…" Myles looked at her for a long moment before turning back to his desk. "It is being brought here from Cairo. Would you like to see it when it gets here?"

Cally wondered if she'd given anything away in her shock, but replied. "Yeah, any chance to see artifacts up close! You know how much I like artifacts!" She tired to laugh it off.

What Cally couldn't say was that the box looked very much like a concealed Goa'uld naquadah bomb.

- _The reason I'm making this tape is because I don't think anyone on Atlantis can help me. So I've made a choice. The Daedalus leaves for Earth today and I'm going with it. If no one at the SGC can help me either, than I am leaving the program. I'm not going AWOL._

_I'm not! _

_Its just that…. _

_I can't sit here and do nothing. _

_I can't be useful here, all by myself. _

_End Tape – _

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Note: For those who don't know, AWOL stands for Absent Without Official Leave. 

Reviews? Pretty please? I'll share the ice cream!

Thanks to those who have reviewed!

JamieT19: Does the naquadah sort of explain a little?

Pandora of Ithilien: Well I'm glad I could make you happy: 3 It's kind of like what happened to Cam, but there are widely different circumstances and reasoning. You'll find out 'soon'!


	4. Frustrations and Employment Issues

Fourth Chapter! Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I recently discovered baking … The house is now full of gingersnaps, thumbprint cookies and Christmas tree shaped sugar cookies. Anyone have any good cookie suggestions?

Disclaimer: I own only the cookies I bake.

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Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 4: Frustrations and Employment Issues

Cally's nerves were screaming by the time she got back to her flat. She'd left the British Museum almost immediately after leaving Myles's office.

There was a naquadah bomb coming to London. Regardless that having a naquadah bomb anywhere was pretty bad, London was full of people. Millions of people.

Normally, Cally would tell her commanding officer, someone in command, and then get her orders. But…

A cold chill ran through her, and a deep well of pure fear opened up beneath Cally's feet and she scrabbled against invisible walls, searching for a foothold, any foothold. There was little purchase, and the fear began to swallow her.

There were no command personnel to report the danger too. Cally didn't have the authority to pull the box from the museum, didn't have the resources to keep it from being activated, and sure as hell know how to disarm it if it was activated.

The first thing that Cally did when she got back was to pull out her laptop. It was too risky to go back into the SGC mission flies, but her apparent invisibility hadn't stopped her yet, in fact, it seemed to help. She'd briefly considered what could happen if she tried to hack into some other system, but realized that it probably wouldn't work. She wasn't a computer whiz.

Cally printed out one of her team's mission files and a few of SG-1's as well, as reference material. Next, after calming her nerves with a cup of tea, (the taste was growing on her), Cally sat down to read.

Her own experience with one was being shut in the cargo hold of a hatak with an active one. Her team hadn't disarmed it, just ran like hell. It hadn't helped that they'd been sitting on it, trapped in the cargo hold first off.

SG-1's experiences were… different… Well, it _was_ SG-1. They still held the track record for getting into the most trouble. Though, Cally thought with a snort, SGA-1 was slowly but steadily catching up.

After four hours, Cally growled and threw the file copies on the floor. They were getting her nowhere! She snatched up her musical scores and glowered at the notes, willing strains of composition to drift through her mind. She had to come up with a plan, figure out something that would give her access to the trunk when it finally got to the BM. Yes, Myles would let her see it, but he'd never leave her alone with it.

A snatch of tune drifted through her mind and Cally began to scribble furiously. She would need some time to figure something out. Hopefully nothing illegal. She hated illegal. Well, for the most part.

* * *

Myles had watched his friend leave the British Museum, and saw the panic she'd been trying to hide. From her behavior, something was incredibly wrong. He hadn't known Cally for long, but even he could see that there was something about the box that had scared her. But what?

"Myles?"

Myles looked up to see a colleague, Dr. Ian Treblo standing in the doorway of his office.

"Ian? Come in. What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if you had an intern yet."

"No, not yet. Why?"

Ian looked crestfallen. "I need new blood to help me in the archives. I've got my three working, but it isn't enough. William needs a hand as well. You always let yours off with light work, we were wondering if you could lend us yours. I suppose not though."

"Sorry. I'll let you know when I do."

"Much appreciated."

A few minutes after Ian had left the room, an idea popped into Myles' head. He smiled. He knew exactly how he could keep an eye on Cally.

* * *

Cally was dreading going back to the Museum, didn't even walk past the place for three days. Myles, though she'd been trying to hide her emotions from him at the time, had probably seen the shock and was trying to give her some space. He was remarkably good at that, picking up what she was feeling.

As she wandered across the city, Cally had posted another letter to Atlantis, with the same three words she had sent in the original letter. It really was silly. It had been a year since the device that hid her had been activated, so the letters probably wouldn't do anything. Even so, sending them meant that maybe, someone somewhere, would get her message.

It was worth it for that.

She'd been in a Starbucks on the Strand, when Myles called her.

"Everet."

"Captain Cally! You've not been seen hiding around my display cases, I'm getting worried. Even some of the staff are curious."

"Myles! I – uh – sorry, I've been a little preoccupied."

"I never would have guessed." A wry joke came through the phone.

Cally laughed, startling two businessmen sitting in chairs near the window. "Look, Myles, I'm sorry about my running out on you the other day. I-"

"It's alright! Honestly! However, I need you to come in as soon as possible." The tone of Myles's voice made her curious, like he was just trying to contain a touch of glee.

"Why?" She asked suspiciously.

"I got you a job." He said brightly, with a smile.

This time, the two businessmen leapt out of their chairs, very startled as a sharp, loud yell shattered the calm atmosphere in the small coffee shop.

"_You what?_"

End Chapter 4

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Author's Note: Ohhh Cally isn't going to be pleased!

Hi folks! Filler chapter! Sorry! Luckily, the story picks up from here! For those of you, who watch Doctor Who; look for a rather familiar blue box next time!

I told Rusting Roses that I wouldn't go to sleep until I got a review…. And I'm running out of tea. Please review? Pleeassee?

Much appreciated to those who have!

Lady Sunwalker: Thank you! No action in this chapter sorry! It will pick up next chapter though! I promise!

Pandora of Ithilien: Sorry for the confusion! The italics are a tape, recorded after Cally became invisible, when she was on Atlantis, and you are 'seeing' what she'd recorded. The rest of the story comes after she records the tape and leaves the Stargate Program, and is on Earth.

Nissa: Its more of a perception filter in this case, with the unfortunate added side affect that anyone and everyone who could help her turn the field _off_ can't actually remember her, so she can only wait for the field to turn off. The question is when will it?


	5. Ode to the Letter Opener

Two chapters in two days! Quick! Call Ripley's!

Note: A stater is an ancient Egyptian coin.

Note the second: I've only ever been to the British Museum once, so if any of this is inaccurate, I apologize profusely.

Note the third: I also don't know if, at any point in the series, the Doctor has ever been to the BM, so for our purposes, he hasn't.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but if someone is looking, I'd really, really like a TARDIS for my birthday…..

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Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 5: Ode to the Letter Opener

Myles looked into a pair of brown eyes and tried not to laugh. The owner of the eyes glared, eyebrows raised and tried to appear horribly angry.

"You got me a _job_?" Cally spoke in disbelief.

"Yes."

"_Why?_" Cally said, exasperated. "I don't want one! I don't need one! I just want to-"

"Wander the city? Memorize the contents of every display case in the British Museum? Visit a new pub every night? Drive yourself to distraction?"

Cally cocked her head to the side and continued glaring, but her expression had softened slightly. "Well, when you put it that way…"

Myles fleetingly allowed himself a smile. Cally rolled her eyes.

_Ok, this was Myles_, Cally told herself, _he was trying to take care of her. He was sweet that way, but in this case…_

"I… really don't need a job Myles. After my last job, I don't think that any job could possibly measure up to it."

"You'd be paid the same amount as a college intern, and while I can't guarantee the same level of excitement, you'll probably be interested"

Cally huffed, then caved. "Fine! What's the job? I'm not saying that I'll take it, but…"

"You're going to be working here, at the BM, for me."

Cally's eyebrows rose once again, thrown for a loop. "What?"

"I persuaded the Human Resources department to let you work here as my intern."

Cally blinked. On one hand, Cally was ready to pound her head against the wall. Working for _Myles_. While it wasn't that she didn't want to, Myles would probably be a great boss, but… the British Museum was more a pastime. Myles would no longer just be a friend to talk to, someone to pour over ancient history with, he'd be her boss. That would be a little weird. Still, being out of the military, where she and her CO were friends, could technically be the same thing.

On the other hand, Cally's inner soldier was screaming to take this chance. If she was working for the Museum, and with Myles, she could come in direct contact with the naquadah bomb. But that would mean lying to Myles, a lot more than she already had. The fact that she'd told him that she couldn't recognize the writing on the bomb was hard enough. She'd had experience with things like this, talking about classified subjects to or around civilians but it went against the grain for some reason, this time. At some point she'd have to tell him at least part of the truth.

Cally sighed. "I take it that I don't have any time to think it over?"

Myles looked apologetic and shook his head. "Sorry. You would have to start tomorrow."

Cally groaned. "Fine." The soldier part of her had won, though repeated frustrated cries from the other half of her conscious were trying to tell her to decline. "What time do I have to be in tomorrow?"

"Six."

Cally looked momentarily horrified and Myles threatened to smile again.

"I thought that military personnel were supposed to be ready to get up at all hours." He teased, then laughed, when Cally responded that yes, she did usually have to do that and no, she didn't like it.

"What will I be doing?" Cally asked, accepting her fate.

Myles suddenly had a grin that Cally suddenly connected, with a sudden queasiness, with one a system lord had given her before she was thrown into a cell, and with a Wraith warrior that had smiled victoriously before shooting her with a paralyzing weapon.

Myles handed her a very ornate bronze letter opener.

"Filing." He said simply.

Cally's mouth opened in horror and accepted the letter opener. Three seconds later, she was trying to talk some sense into the unfairly laughing archeologist.

* * *

"Filing." Cally muttered the next morning, stomping her way into the museum. "_Filing!_ I've flown alien spaceships, I've repeatedly had my molecules ripped apart and jammed back together. I used to live in a different galaxy. And what does he give me? _Filing_!" 

Myles was waiting for her in the Great Court with a cup of coffee, near one of the modern art displays that the Museum was experimenting with, and they'd started showing them a week ago. This one had to be one of them because it looked like an old fashioned police box.

He looked disturbingly bright and cheerful. "Good morning!"

Cally raised her eyebrow and gave her biggest –the 'its too early to be up' – smile. "Morning Myles." She was trying to make the most of the situation, but her griping was the only way she knew to take the steam off. Cally never griped to anyone else because doing that, especially in places like Atlantis during the first year, was a _great_ way to make everyone feel miserable and to alienate yourself from the rest of the expedition. Doctor Kavanaugh was a prime example.

Myles took pity on her and handed her the coffee cup. "Black coffee I'm afraid. I didn't know if you took milk or sugar."

"Black is perfect Myles, thanks. Less to dilute the caffeine." The corner of Myles' mouth twitched at this. "To your office then?"

"Yes, come on!"

The entrance to the Egyptian department was by the east stairs, past the reading room. Cally knew the way by heart by now. What she didn't like to show was that she knew how to get in without a key card. It was one of those things you learned on the fly while working for the Stargate program, and was an extremely useful still to keep a hold of.

Some of the staff recognized her and waved or greeted her as they passed, the few that were there at this hour. Myles unlocked his office and waved to a nearby chair. "Sit! You won't be starting your official duties for another hour yet, I have to inform you of your duties and get you your identification card. Luckily I don't have to give you the tour!"

Cally snorted. The caffeine was starting to work. "I feel like I'm accepting another military post. Could I use my military ID picture for the identification card?"

"I doubt it. You used to do filing in the military?"

"Myles. It's the military. There's more paperwork per person for every mission than the UN probably generates in a month."

"I doubt that as well."

"Well. There is a lot of it…"

"Alright, alright, I'll give you that much. You'll be pleased to know that you'll be coming in at eight every morning and not six."

Cally's face lit up in glee, making Myles laugh. "Not falling asleep on the Tube is always a plus!"

"You fell asleep on the Tube?"

Cally smiled. "Maybe. But if you hear a Tube conductor talking about some odd lady mumbling about pyramids, it wasn't me."

Myles turned away and tried not to laugh. "You'll be filing some of my work, and then I'm lending you out."

Cally blinked. "Lending me out?"

Myles smiled once again, and this time Cally felt like the system lord was grinning at her again. "Department tradition. Interns are lent and borrowed."

"So suddenly I'm _currency_?"

"Something like that."

Cally paused for a moment. "Do I get to choose a denomination?"

Myles was amused. "If you want to."

"Right then, I'm a stater. What are you?"

Myles wasn't sure how to respond.

* * *

They had to do the ID photo twice, since the security personnel wouldn't let her keep the one where she'd made a funny face.

* * *

Myles, it turned out, was a pack rat. Cally glanced at the room full of papers with the horror she had only usually reserved for Wraith attacks. 

"You want me to sort…all of…this?"

"Every bit of paper you can."

Myles wanted to laugh, as his plan to keep her occupied was turning out rather well.

Cally brandished the bronze letter opener with the resolve she would her P-90, and glared without mercy at the files.

If she had anything to say about it, these files would have been smote at that instant.

* * *

Somewhere near the Asian exhibits, a young student doctor asked a man in a long brown coat a question. "You've been coming to Earth for how long, and you've really never been to the British Museum?" 

End Chapter 5

* * *

Powered by reviews. 

Thanks for the review! I can finally sleep:3

WingedIsis16: It is like a cloak isn't it!


	6. A Touch of Ink

Hi all! From the depths of my after holidays happiness, I bring you an extra long chapter: 3

I know, I was surprised too!

Author's Note: I hope I got the Doctor and Martha right! If anyone has any pointers, I'll be happy to hear them!

Disclaimer: Once again, my lonely tea-cup and I own nothing. At least until the kettle boils, and then I'll have tea too! (It's below zero outside! The tea is important!)

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 6: A Touch of Ink

A letter, addressed To Whom It May Concern, was lifted into the mailroom of Atlantis. It lingered there, being sifted from pile to pile. No one touched it, and eventually, as the last bit of mail in the room, it lay forgotten in a corner, gathering dust.

* * *

A letter opener stabbed into a sheaf of papers and stuck there, quivering.

Cally sighed and glanced at the room around her. Dust motes floated upward and glinted gold in the lamplight. She'd been filing, and filing, and filing for two weeks now. The room wasn't even a quarter of the way done.

True, she'd spent a bit of the time composing, and reading some of the more historic documents that she had found while filing. They'd been fun to read, some of them, pages from diaries, descriptions of medieval life and battles. Romanticism at its best.

Myles hadn't exactly given her any time requirements. In fact, she'd come to suspect that was the point. He was keeping an eye on her. He'd definitely noticed her reaction to the pictures. Some of the documents she'd been reading would definitely be of interest to the SGC, but beyond that…

That was a thought, was anyone in the SGC even monitoring museums and libraries? If Myles had documents that were even slightly interesting to the SGC, who knows what could be found in the archives of this place?

A frown developed on Cally's face, but disappeared when she sighed. Her predicament didn't led itself to helping her situation.

Still, at least she wasn't walking around in the cold any more. Even she knew that it wasn't much of a consolation.

She'd sent another three letters off to Atlantis in the meantime. It helped.

* * *

Cally sat on a stack of books about the Iron Age. Boredom was definitely the rule of the day. She thought that Myles knew her reaction meant something more than interest in an artifact. He would probably ask her about it, but that was the thing, Myles would usually come out and ask her what was wrong almost immediately. Cally swore internally. He suspected something. Something a lot more than suspicious languages.

He'd probably try and test her. That was even worse. She'd have to not pass the test. The lying issue was coming up again.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cally spotted a curled up piece of paper on the floor, under another pile that she hadn't finished sorting. She wasn't sure what it was that had attracted her to the piece, but the half hour she spent taking the pile apart for better access to it.

It was a tiny scrap of papyrus, little more than an inch wide and two inches across. It was crinkled and stained, but just about readable. There were only a few symbols, but the scrap was clearly in Goa'uld. It didn't actually say anything in any way important, just the words 'Jaffa' and 'victorious in battle'.

It looked like the rest had been torn off, and recently. Cally's brows knitted together. There hadn't been any other Goa'uld documents that she'd seen so far. So why was this here? Cally quickly stuffed the scrap into her pocket.

If it was a test then Myles would ask after it, if it wasn't…

Then the papyrus was authentic. So she'd have to find out where the rest of the papyrus went, and who had taken it.

And most importantly, who would be taking Goa'uld documents.

The monitoring system was looking like a better idea already.

* * *

"Cally?" Myles knocked on the door of the storeroom.

"I'm not here!" A muffled, joking voice came from the inside of the room. "Especially if you have more papers to file."

Myles smiled and entered. "My hands are empty, am I allowed entrance?"

Cally nodded sagely. "If you've got no papers, absolutely!"

"Would you like some lunch? Perhaps a change of scenery? The cafeteria I hear has paper only in napkin form."

"Good!"

"Found anything interesting?"

The rolling of her eyes told him enough. "If I did, could I stop filing?"

Myles grinned. "Not a chance in the world."

* * *

They decided to go to the Gallery Café for lunch, the Court Café was closer, but it was slightly less touristy. Not by much, but there was less cause to speak in softer tones. The Great Court _echoed. _

She watched Myles for any sign of him testing her. To her surprise, there was no sign of any apparent sneakiness. On Atlantis, you really needed to watch out for pranks. Committed by anyone. When people had nothing better to do, pranks soon followed, so Cally knew the signs by now.

Either Myles was a phenomenal actor, or he knew nothing about the papyrus. That was food for thought. Speaking of food…

They sat at a table out of the way from the rest of the busyness after getting their food. One of the things Cally enjoyed about being a civilian was the lack of Commissary food and MRE's. There was a blessed lack of either. The food on Atlantis hadn't been terrible, if you didn't mind not knowing exactly what _kind_ of meat you were eating.

For now, she was just glad to see that bologna sandwiches still existed.

"You look like you're enjoying that." Myles toyed with his salad.

"You would not believe me if I told you how much."

That got another smile out of him. "I was wondering, have you seen a dissertation on Ancient Rome among the litter?"

"I'll let you know. I think I may have only reached the 1800's layer so far."

He chuckled. "Do I need to get you a shovel?"

Cally shrugged, deadpan. "Probably, maybe a wheelbarrow too. I may need to do some carbon dating as well."

"Oh really?"

"I may unearth something down there the world needs to know about! Discover a long lost manuscript!"

Myles snorted and rolled his eyes. "That I doubt."

Cally's brain flashed momentarily back to the scrap of papyrus. "Yeah. You may be right. After all, it was all put in there this century."

"We can only hope." Myles was joking, but Cally was worried that it was true. If it was, then the papyrus had come from somewhere else.

"I found some interesting documents. Do you think maybe, if you had time, we could look at them?" She had found some documents that even her backround in history from the Academy, she just didn't understand them.

"Certainly. I've probably put them there, so I'll be able to tell you a bit about them."

Again Cally's mind flashed back to the papyrus and she wondered if Myles was the only one who put stuff into that particular storage room.

But she grinned, to Myles looking as happy as she usually did when around the artifacts; before she'd seen the photos of the box that was being shipped as they spoke. "Excellent."

She paused, the tentatively asked. "Any news on the box?"

Myles's concentration became more focused. He had been watching her as well, but now he was scrutinizing her, while trying to appear as if he was not doing so. "On translating the language? No, unfortunately. The box is being shipped by ship though; it should be in London in a few weeks." He smiled. "And then we can break it open."

Cally nearly froze with panic, but managed to stay as relaxed as she could. "Sounds like fun! Am I allowed to take pictures?" They couldn't even _try_ to open the box, if they did, the whole city could go up.

Myles hadn't seemed to notice the pause, but he'd smiled. "The box appears to be heavy enough that there is something inside. I can't wait to see the contents. And, yes, pictures will be a must."

Cally felt her smile become slightly strained and took a bite of her sandwich to cover it up. "Nothing can put a good archaeologist down!" She was glad of the pictues though. It was kind of a hobby she'd started on Atlantis. There was a club for it. And maybe she'd be able to take pictures for her report when she got back, if she got back.

As Myles smiled and was about to reply, his phone rang. He picked it out of his pocket and answered it. "Myles Carter."

Cally waited patiently as she ate.

"Ian!" Myles groaned. "I forgot, I'm sorry. I'll be there a few minutes, I really am terribly sorry." Myles hung up quickly. "Cally, I'm sorry, I was supposed to have lunch with a friend of mine, another archaeologist, Doctor Ian Treblo, and I hadn't remembered that-"

Cally swallowed then smiled. "Its ok Myles. Go ahead. I'm going to stall before filing again."

Myles smiled, nodded and carted his tray away. "I'll come and see you later Captain."

Cally grimaced and rolled her eyes. She wished he'd stopped doing that, it kept reminding her of home.

* * *

A few minutes after Myles had left, a couple of Museum visitors looking for a table caught Cally's eye. One was a rather cute man in a suit and long brown coat who seemed to smile at everyone who passed, the other was a young woman in a dark red leather jacket who was scanning the extremely crowded room anxiously.

"Come on Martha! It can't be too hard to find a table in here." The man was incredibly perky.

"Doctor, it's the height of lunch hour. The hospital isn't even as busy as this."

Cally glanced at her own table, built for four but currently only occupied by one. She managed to catch the woman's attention. "You can sit here if you'd like."

The woman – Martha – smiled gratefully and slipped her tray onto the table. "Thank you! You wouldn't believe how tetchy he gets if he has to wait."

The man looked momentarily affronted. "Oi!" Then he grinned and sat next to Martha. "I never get tetchy."

Martha snorted and then held out her hand. "I'm Martha Jones. He's the Doctor." She indicated the man with a thumb in his direction. The Doctor shook Cally's hand as well, his smile never faltering, but he held her hand a few seconds more than necessary.

"Nice to meet you-" He asked.

Cally immediately went into autopilot. "Captain Cally Everet." She winced as the Doctor's eyebrows raised.

"A Captain? In what branch of service?" Captains seemed to be following him around.

Cally sighed and apologized. "Sorry, forget the Captain. I used to be in the United States Air Force. I haven't gotten used to not saying it , I only left just recently. Just call me Cally." She paused. "And that was probably too much information from a stranger."

Martha shook her head. "S'alright. I 'ad to drag him away from the Asian exhibits to even get to lunch! Be nice to get something coherent out of someone other than rants about inaccuracies."

Cally tried to hide a smile as the Doctor protested. She had noticed that he hadn't presented a name to go along with the doctor designation. Still, she hadn't seen bickering on this level of funny since she'd left the Pegasus Galaxy.

"How long have you worked here?" The Doctor asked interested, returning her smile as he dropped milk packets into his tea.

"About two weeks." Cally smiled and shrugged. "Have you ever been to the museum before?"

"I have." Martha said, and then pointed a spoon full of vanilla pudding at the Doctor. "He hasn't."

Cally nodded. "I hadn't been here before either."

"Then how'd you spring a job here?" Martha inquired.

Cally grinned. "Frequent lurking around the Egyptian display cases. Apparently, once they see you often enough you're fair game."

Martha thought she was joking.

"No, really! After a while they just start handing you bits of paperwork."

Even the Doctor burst out laughing when Cally told them how Myles had 'applied' her for the job.

"So what do you do?" He asked.

Cally scowled. "I file. Mountains upon mountains of paper. He even bought me a bronze letter opener." They were trying not to laugh. "I'm pretty sure he's trying to keep me out of trouble." Cally smiled at them. "As if I would ever get into trouble!"

They looked at each other and laughed again, and this time, Cally laughed with them.

* * *

In a storage room linked to the Atlantis labs, a small wrist device continued to glow steadily with no signs of stopping.

* * *

A suspiciously inscribed box rocked gently in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to the gentle beat of the waves that carried the boat ever closer to London, England.

End Chapter 6

* * *

Long chapter huh? Hope you liked it! – Time's Whisper

Thanks for the reviews! The more I get, the more I work, and the more I work, the more I write, and… well I think you get the drift! Winks

lakewater: Yes, definitely Myles will attract a bit of attention from the SGC. I hadn't really thought of it, so thanks for bringing it up!

WingedIsis16: Yes! You are right! Sorry for the confusion. It is a kind of cloak! I used to have the same problem and had to resort to the same sneakiness: 3

Pandora of Ithilien: Yup! Where those two are, trouble is always sure to follow!


	7. Suspicions, Screwdrivers and Songs

This chapter gave me a bit of trouble, sorry for the delay!

Disclaimer: I own only the packing boxes I get to haul back to school. And I will trade them for chocolate bars.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 7: Suspicions, Screwdrivers and Songs

Cally continued to watch the Doctor and Martha bicker, occasionally adding her own teasing to the mix. Her team on Atlantis liked to do the same thing, though their teasing usually bounced from who'd done what horribly embarrassing thing on a mission. Some things were universal constants. She just had to make sure never to bring up M7C-836 around the team physicist. At least not while you wanted hot water and reasonable room temperature.

She snorted as Martha stole the Doctor's scone, only to have him steal it back again when she was up getting more tea.

"Not to be nosy," Cally said, taking a sip of her own tea. "But you two seem close."

The Doctor rubbed a hand through his hair. "Yes, well." He said, drawing out the second word. "When you've traveled around and been through a lot, it tends to happen." He grinned.

Cally felt a slow smile drift across her features as her friends on Atlantis flashed through her mind. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"So what did you do before you started to lurk around the display cases?" The Doctor asked curiously, putting his elbows on the table and resting his head on his hands. It made him look adorable and almost childlike.

Cally smiled wanly. "Sorry, most of it was classified. I flew aircraft for the most part." The Doctor noticed that her smile had gone all wispy, as if she was remembering something. In fact, Cally was reminiscing over the smooth flight of Puddlejumpers. Not that the Doctor knew that.

She looked at him curiously. "So what do you two do that allows you to travel a lot?"

The Doctor smiled. "Ah! That!" He started to rummage around in his pockets, pulling out ridiculous odds and ends. String, glasses, random coins, a clown's rubber nose, spools of wire. He pulled out a long cylindrical object as well, with a curved attachment on top, almost like crystal. When he pressed a button, the top attachment started to glow and the whole device, Cally guessed that was what it was, hummed softly.

"What is this?" Cally asked hesitantly as the Doctor handed it over to her, then continued to pat his pockets almost aimlessly.

"It's a special type of screwdriver," he told her, pulling a card cover out of his breast pocket. "Delicate and annoying to fix."

"What can it unscrew?" Cally stared at the glowing object. Her last encounter with a glowing object had been bad enough.

The Doctor grinned proudly. "Just about anything."

Cally would have to see it to believe it.

The Doctor opened the card cover to show her a card that said: Doctor John Smith, Historian, Ph.D. It listed the name of a University in the south of England and contact information. "We do a lot of traveling for my research. Martha is my assistant."

Cally nodded understanding and watched him gather up the things that had littered the table just as Martha returned. She looked knowingly at the Doctor as he tried to put the things he carried back into the proper pockets. She spotted the device, what she knew to be the sonic screwdriver, in Cally's hands and tried not to look as surprised as she felt. Cally saw it and while it didn't register immediately, her mind filed it away for future reference.

"So are you studying to be a historian too?" She asked Martha politely as the other woman added milk to her tea.

"No, I'm studying to be a medical doctor. I'm just along for the ride." Martha grinned, imagining what her life would be like without the Doctor, who plucked the sonic screwdriver from Cally's hands with a murmur of thanks.

"A medical doctor?" Cally's mind flashed back to the Expedition's Chief Medical Officer, Carson Beckett. "That's always interesting work! And," She said with a mischievous smile, "if you're in the military, you can boss us Marines around. You wouldn't believe some of the escape attempts we've had from our base infirmary."

"Escape attempts?" Martha didn't know if she was joking or not.

"Yeah. Lying in a bed for a period of intense observation is _not_ one of my favorite pastimes. Sorry." Cally grinned impishly.

"Last time I was sick I ended up wearing my friend's mum's boyfriend's bathrobe." The Doctor laughed. "The man kept fruit in the pockets! Can you imagine? Fruit!"

Cally laughed as the man continued to rant, then caught sight of her watch. She glared, then sighed. "Sorry, I have to go back to filing. It was nice to meet you both."

"Likewise!" Martha shook Cally's hand while the Doctor just waved and they watched her place her dishes by the trash bin and leave the Café.

* * *

Outside the Café, five minutes after Cally had left, Martha pulled the Doctor into a corner of the Greek exhibit.

"What were you using the sonic screwdriver on her for?"

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and looked at it frowning. "There was something – off about her. I needed to know what it was."

Martha looked skeptical. "Well?"

"She has a large amount of naqahdah in her blood."

The aspiring doctor looked confused. "What? I've never heard of naqahdah!"

The Doctor had grown serious and he pocketed the screwdriver, heading off through the Greek exhibits towards the Assyrian exhibits. "That isn't surprising, seeing as its not a mineral native to Earth."

Martha froze for a moment, eyes widening with the shock of what the Doctor had just told her. "You mean she's been off of the planet?"

"More than once, if the level of naquadah in Cally's blood is any indication."

Martha jogged to keep up. "But that's impossible!"

The Doctor raised his eyebrow at her. "You've been traveling with me how long, and you still say things like that?"

Martha huffed, but the Doctor kept talking. "The thing is, you're right."

Martha stopped again. "I am?"

"In this time period, yours, the farthest you humans should have traveled into space would be your upper atmosphere, the International Space Station, the Moon certainly, but nowhere where naquadah exists."

Martha nodded. "So she's been off the planet?"

"Far off the planet. The question is how and why."

"And why she's here now." Martha added. She liked the woman she'd just met, but if the Doctor thought that something was too suspicious.

"Right!"

"So what's the plan?" Martha smiled widely, feeling the excitement she usually did when another one of their adventures began.

"We're volunteering."

"For what?"

"Filing!"

Martha stared. "You're joking."

The Doctor grinned, didn't reply, and walked away, his coat drifting along behind him.

"You are joking aren't you?" Martha called after him.

* * *

Cally gulped, palms sweating. She'd told Myles that she had an appointment and had left half an hour early. In reality, she'd gone back to the bar, the one that held live talent nights. She had, in a moment of complete lunacy, signed herself up to perform. At the moment, Cally was trying to figure out _why_ she'd done something so completely and undeniably stupid.

She'd picked up guitar on Atlantis, more to pass her free time with. She hadn't taken lessons, and no one had ever actually heard her play. So, once again, this seemed like _such _a bad idea. Cally didn't even know is she was good or not.

Even a Wraith battle would probably be less stressful than this. Well, not by much.

Cally climbed the steps of the small wooden stage and crossed to the diminutive stool in the center of the stage in front of the microphone. She couldn't see the people in the crowd because the floor was too dark. Which was probably for the best. Cally just hoped that no one in the crowd carried over ripe vegetables on their person, since at this low visibility, she'd never be able to see them coming.

The clapping died down, and Cally cleared her throat. "Hi. My name is Cally Everet, and I'm going to play for you two songs. The first is about a hope that a lot of us share, the second-" She gulped again. "Is about a city I'm kind of attached to."

She strummed the acoustic guitar she was cradling and it softly responded to the drag of the pick across the strings. Cally took a deep breath, like she was preparing to take off in a Puddlejumper, and started to sing.

* * *

Another letter, with the same three words as another that sat in the Atlantis mailroom, postmarked for the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, lay in a mailbag in an airplane, far above the Atlantic Ocean.

* * *

Under the same sky, a box rocked slowly.

* * *

Thanks for the reviews! It keeps my email inbox alive and kicking! All are appreciated!

ifiwalkthesun: Thank you! It'll be very interesting when they try to open it!

Pandora of Ithilien: The Torchwood team is on its way! Well, they will be soon. They are amazing aren't they? When the box comes, the team will appear.

WingedIsis16: Yup! That slowing accumulating dust bunny will be joined by a few more, and the letters play a huge part close to the end.


	8. Pink Shovels are not Good Tools

Hi everyone! You've asked, so here's another chapter!

Author's Note: I have no idea if it's even right to have the antagonist as a minor character, but I suppose it will have to be! I will now introduce our evil villain- :) Did you really think I'd say who it is just yet?

Disclaimer: I own my pencils, I own my paper, and I even own Cally! I don't own any other characters or anything else. Sad, but true.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 8: Pink Shovels and Late Nights are Not Good Combinations

It was downright amazing.

Cally sat at the bar, taking sips of something she couldn't name, something oddly opaque pink. Cally didn't look at it much, it was so neon colored it was painful too. She didn't care for the taste either, but at the moment, she wasn't too picky.

They hadn't even thrown a tomato. Not one.

Cally wasn't sure whether or not to be disappointed or relieved.

"Oi! Yank!" The bartender leaned over the bar, the same that had before told her about the live talent night.

Cally looked at her, shell-shocked and slightly tipsy. "Err, yes?"

The woman smirked. "Alec wants t' see ye."

Cally's brow furrowed. "Alec?"

"The owner luv! Back room!" She indicated with a nod of her head.

Cally slowly picked herself off the stool and, clutching her guitar case – she'd had to scratch the Atlantis sticker off of it – and walked slowly into the back room.

She left it a few minutes later, eyes wide and in a daze. They wanted her to come back! She wasn't sure whether or not her mind was reeling or if it was the drinks.

Cally wondered if she should pay someone to throw tomatoes at her. Just in case. Anything not to face a crowd again. Even if they had clapped, and cheered, and if some of them had bought her drinks. Many, many drinks.

* * *

The next morning, Cally stepped into the storage room clutching at her head and wincing at impossibly bright light sources. 

"Never gonna drink again. Never, ever." She groaned, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

A bright and cheery female voice answered her. "If I had a pound for every time I heard something like that…"

Cally winced and covered her ears. "Louuud."

There was a muffled giggling and Cally managed to open her eyes to the bright light, and stared, hangover suddenly forgotten.

Doctor John Smith and Martha Jones waved from a couple of the stacks of paper. Cally, stunned, turned around and to the pair's amusement, walked out and disappeared for a few moments. They glanced at each other with a laughing smile.

Cally walked back in again. She blinked. "You really are in here…"

The Doctor grinned. "Well, relatively speaking of course, yes."

Cally groaned. The scientists on Atlantis had kept going on about relativity. She wanted no part of it. At least the math part. Unless it was really unavoidable.

Martha took pity on her, and out of her bag came a small bottle of aspirin. "Here, take these, almost doctors orders"

Cally grinned appreciatively and took them with the coffee she was carrying. "Thank you sooo much."

"Had fun last night?" The Doctor guessed.

Cally looked at him sharply before she could stop herself, and then nodded slightly, any more movement than that hurt. "Yeah. People bought me drinks. Lots of them. I don't think this was even as bad as when I was-" Cally paused, realizing that she had just been about to mention an offworld mission, one with a big party and a really, really devastating local liquor. Hangovers were definitely something to avoid, they obviously made her mouth gabber about more than she should. Cally shook her head. "You know, I don't think I should finish that sentence."

Martha shook her head, amused. "Too bad."

Cally looked at them puzzled again. "So, why _are_ you guys in here?"

"We were caught lurking around some display cases." Martha grinned.

Cally blinked, then tried do cover a broad grin with her hand. "Oh yeah? Which ones?"

"The Assyrian ones." The Doctor waved a hand as if to indicate that it was unimportant. "But beggars can't be choosers."

Martha, with a stern look, pointed to the Doctor. "He volunteered us."

Cally bit her lip to try to stop laughing, looked hurriedly to the ground and didn't look back up for about a minute. A smile played around her lips. "I think I sense I trend." She said to Martha. "You're _sure_ he's not in league with a man named Myles Carter?"

Martha grinned back and eyed the Doctor in a mock suspicious manner. "I wouldn't be the least bit surprised."

The Doctor laughed. "Me? Never!" His eyes twinkled as he looked at Cally. "I have to admit, your Myles was happy to let us in."

"Absolutely!" Myles's voice sounded cheerful behind Cally, who when into the storage room to let him in as well.

The man grinned at her. And then handed her a pink shovel. The kind you give to toddlers at the beach. It reminded Cally vaguely of something liquid-ish she'd had the night before. Cally looked back up and raised her eyebrows.

"Happy digging." Myles grinned like a mischievous schoolboy, ruffled Cally's hair in good morning, and went to his office.

Cally distinctly heard muffled laughter behind her.

Myles had come back with a camera, and she hadn't even moved a muscle, when he took the photo of her glazed expression, still holding aloft the plastic shovel.

_I'm never going to get drunk again._ Cally mentally vowed. _Never. Not even offworld. Or on it. Never again. _

* * *

Around ten am there was a knock at the door of Myles' door. Myles looked up and smiled. "Ian! Come in!" 

Dr. Treblo came in, responding to the greeting in kind, and then smiled like the cat that ate the canary. "I hear you finally have an intern."

Myles rolled his eyes. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to hear. I take it you want to borrow Cally?"

Ian raised his eyebrows. "Cally? You mean the young woman you found hanging about our display cases?"

"Yes! That's her. I decided to help keep her out of trouble. She was walking around the city, by herself, at night of all things! She would go into the most dangerous bystreets I've heard of!" Myles was slightly outraged. He wouldn't walk down those streets at any time of the day or night, but Cally did it at night, late enough that anyone who hadn't faced worse dangers would have feared for their lives.

That was what partially worried him, the implication that Cally had faced worse dangers, so much so that walking down an ally filled with violent muggers was explained away as nearly nothing.

Ian nodded in understanding. Myles had told him about Cally's wandering. "And what do you have her doing now?"

Myles smiled a little bit, remembering this morning's incident with the pink shovel. "Filing my storeroom."

Ian grinned at that. "You know, I thought making students and interns ruffle through your storeroom was considered cruel and unusual punishment?"

Myles looked mockingly affronted. "It is not!"

Ian laughed. "So when can I have her?"

Myles shook his head. "Not for another couple of days, I'm sorry. She still has quite a bit to file."

Ian looked disappointed. "Alright then, if you insist."

"I know how hard you work your interns Ian," Myles said, only half joking. "Can you blame me for wanting to give her a bit of rest before you work her to death?"

Ian smirked, and then left.

* * *

Cally giggled for the third time in two minutes. The Doctor, who'd been rummaging through documents they were filing, had been ranting. In fact, he'd been mumbling steadily for about an hour and a half. Cally could only pick up a few words ranging from "completely and totally inaccurate" to "what _is_ that supposed to be?" 

Martha caught Cally's eye over a pile of research magazines, they grinned, and then ducked again so they wouldn't laugh as the Doctor let out another outraged muttering.

"So how did you two meet?" Cally asked while picking up a pile out printouts.

"He was a patient." Martha said, having taken off the leather jacket about an hour before. "At least until I nearly got attacked by a group of rhinos."

Cally's eyebrows rose considerably. "You got attacked. By rhinos. In London."

Martha grinned widely. "Not something you'd usually see in a normal day job?"

Cally blinked, and then grinned just as widely. _You'd be surprised. _"Not really."

"What did you do in the American Air Force? Other than fly planes?"

Cally froze for a moment, and then continued. She didn't notice the Doctor was paying more attention to her rather than the papers he was sifting through. "I traveled a lot, from bases to countries. It was fun." She smiled in memory, and then the smile died. "It _was_ fun."

"So what happened?" The Doctor came over, still holding a pile of papers.

Cally suddenly looked uncomfortable. "It – there was an accident. I – look, I'm not too comfortable talking about this. It's complicated and-" Cally had caught a glimpse of the paper on top of the Doctor's pile.

"What _is_ that?" She asked, picking it gingerly off the pile. It was papyrus, and the symbols looked very familiar.

The Doctor decided to play dumb. "I don't know, it looks like a variant of Ancient Egyptian."

He noticed that Cally's eyes lingered a moment too long on each symbol, her eyes running back and forth, as if she was _reading_ it. His suspicions kicked up a notch.

"That looks like-" Cally stopped mid-sentence and put the papyrus onto an empty shelf near the door. "Myles would want to see this." She said, without explaining.

Martha looked curious, because she'd seen the all too familiar calculating stare of the Doctor as he watched Cally. "What is it?"

"It's not Ancient Egyptian." Cally told her hesitantly. "One of Victoria's friends, Victoria is Myles' wife, found an artifact in Egypt with the same writing on it. It's on its way here to the museum. We're going to try to find out what it says."

The Doctor masked his suspicions well. "Well then, no point in trying to do anything with it now, maybe it's time for a tea break? Just a short one." He said hopefully.

"Please?" Asked Martha.

Cally nodded. "As long as we sneak past Myles' office."

* * *

She picked up the delicate scrap of papyrus. Cally had told the Doctor and Martha that she had forgotten her wallet in the storeroom, but in reality… Her eyes skimmed the page rapidly. It was in the same context of the scrap of papyrus that she'd found a few days before. It wasn't the original document, but it gave a long winded explanation of a Jaffa battle between two ancient Goa'uld system lords. 

Cally's glee quickly gave into frustration. It was confirmed that there was more of this stuff, but if it had been moved, no one had commented on the differences between this and Ancient Egyptian. An odd feeling came over her as a vague suspicion entered her mind and then vanished before Cally could get a grasp on it. Disgusted, Cally replaced the sheet, she couldn't take it away because the Doctor and Martha had seen it, and hurried towards the Court Café.

* * *

"She can read it." The Doctor told Martha once Cally had disappeared from earshot. 

"The script? Then why didn't she say anything?" Martha was a bit taken aback. "Couldn't she help that archeologist with it?"

"Possibly." The Doctor nodded. "But there has to be more-"

"Didn't she mention an artifact?" Martha said, running through her conversation with Cally.

The Doctor grinned at his companion. "Brilliant! She could be waiting for the artifact to get here. Whatever it is has to be important. She used to work for the Air Force, perhaps she still is We've got to learn more about this artifact, maybe pay a visit to Dr. Myles."

"Later." Martha cautioned the Time Lord. "I want one of those scones first."

* * *

From inside a locked office, a pair of eyes suddenly glowed yellow. A hand picked up a round silver-gray object lying on a cushion on the nearby desk top. Anyone would have thought that this object was a simple desk ornament. For a moment, there were clouds covering the surface of the ball, and then an image of a ship in the open ocean covered one area of the communicator's surface. 

There had been no problems so far. He could have picked the bomb from the ship, but he would rather not risk the involvement of the Tauri authorities, they only caused small hindrances, but should Stargate Command learn of the bomb… they would destroy what he had worked so hard to do.

It was better to proceed cautiously. During the human rebellion, when Ra had fled the Earth, he'd been captured, forced out of power. That would now change. Power would be his again.

The Tauri would rue the day that had imprisoned him.

* * *

Author's Note: So our antagonist has been revealed! Tell me what you think! Anything I did bad, and characterization that I did messily? Let me know! 

Revvvviiiiiwwwwssss. The word is just as beautiful as the real thing!

Thanks for the reviews everyone!

JamieT19: Thank you! Your wish is my command!

Pandora of Ithilien: I think that Torchwood and UNIT, because they are older than the SGC, probably know that an American society to fight aliens exists. How much contact they have to one another is debatable. Since Torchwood doesn't directly deal with governments, though apparently they have some pull in the British government, I'm going to assume that they don't. UNIT, because they have ties to the UN, probably do know about the SGC, and probably have dealings with them.

WingedIsis16: I like dust bunnies too, except when they become sentient and live under my bed. : 3


	9. A Pocket Full of Jellybabies

Author's Note: Sorry about the lateness of the chapter! College classes started four weeks ago and are slowly killing me, and considering the only time I really have to write is during said classes… Well, you get the idea.

Disclaimer: I sadly, own nothing. But if there are people willing to rectify this….. You know where to find me.

And Now: The plot ever thickens, puzzle pieces are revealed, questions are asked, more are generated, and there could be breaking and entering involved!

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 9: A Pocket Full of Jellybabies

Cally yawned and rolled over in her bed. Her alarm would go off in approximately fifteen minutes and she didn't care in the least.

Drifting in and out of sleep, Cally reflected on the pages she'd taken from the museum the night before. They had been companion pieces to the one that the Doctor had found two days before. They were becoming interesting.

The pages of papyrus were older than she'd thought originally, depicting portions of an uprising against the Goa'uld, not the same one that had forced Ra to flee Earth, but a smaller one in the aftermath. It could mean nothing, they could have just been collected and brought to the museum, but years with the Stargate program had given her something akin to a 'spidey sense'. Something never meant nothing.

Cally had noticed the Doctor watching her. He was trying to be discrete and was, in fact, very good at it. If she wasn't so wary of people in the museum, because of the documents and the rapidly approaching armament, she would have missed it. Martha seemed normal, nice too. She wasn't too suspicious of Cally.

When her alarm clock went off, Cally slept through it until the radio kicked in, blaring the BBC morning news at a volume that would have rendered a Wraith unconscious.

* * *

A paper bag was thrust under Martha's nose. 

"Jelly baby?" The Doctor asked.

"Jelly babies? I didn't think people ate those anymore!"

The Doctor wiggled the bag again and Martha dipped her hand in to pull out an orange one.

"I found them in one of my old coats in the TARDIS." The Doctor said, popping one into his mouth with a happy bounce in his steps.

Martha looked at him warily; the Doctor on a sugar high would be more frightening than he was with his already boundless energy.

They stepped out of the TARDIS and into the Great Court. It was just before they were supposed to show up for 'work'.

"I used to eat them a lot, fourth regeneration I think, the one with bad teeth."

"From eating these probably." Martha teased, making a face. These things tasted as if they were pure sugar, and excruciatingly sweet.

The Doctor grinned widely. "Never!" He'd made sure to lock the door of the TARDIS behind him, as they didn't want anyone wandering in.

"Do you want to do something else today? Less filing, more fun?"

Martha looked at him curiously. "Are you bored?"

"No, no, no. I just thought that we'd take a day off."

"I think I like that plan."

* * *

When Cally walked into the storage room, she was a little disappointed to find it devoid of life. Even only after a few days, she'd gotten used to Martha and the Doctor helping her file. She went to see Myles, knocking on his door. The man yawned widely himself as he tried to wave her in while covering his mouth at the same time. "Sorry, good morning Cally." 

"Morning, Myles. You look tired."

"Absolutely." He yawned again. "I know, Victoria took me to an art gallery opening, which I have nothing against. However, we also met up with some old friends and spent until three in the morning there, drinking."

"How's Victoria then?" Cally found herself yawning in sympathy.

"Just as bad, but she's retired, she's allowed to stay home and sleep it off."

Cally took a sip of coffee so that so that she would stop yawning.

"Myles Carter, out on the town." Cally teased.

Myles rolled his eyes and yawned. "Have you found something to do with to do with your feelings?"

Cally immediately thought of her guitar, but shrugged. "Nothing much."

Myles glared at her sleepily. "No wandering?"

Cally laughed. "No Dad, no more wandering."

Myles looked unreasonably pleased with himself.

"Have you seen Martha or the Doctor?" Cally grinned, allowing Myles to bask in his victory. This job did keep her from aimlessly wandering the city. Between this and her amateur singing carrier, she's spent less time on her condition, and more time settling into her new life.

"They took the day off. They are volunteers; they don't have to work every day."

"I know, but we were doing so well!"

"I noticed." The sounds of laughter coming from the storage room had been unmistakable. "The Doctor showed me a bit of papyrus that you three found floating about in there."

Cally paused, and then nodded in acknowledgement for the find. If he'd seen it, there was nothing she could do, but Cally had been sure that she'd taken it all…Except for the paper from a few days ago. "Good. Could you find someone to translate it?"

"No." She saw him appraise her sharply and quietly, but said nothing. What was there to say? "I cannot find anyone who can translate this odd script in Europe. Victoria, with her numerous connections, has found an American professor from, do you know this place, Stanford University? He might be able to translate it."

"Not personally, I went straight to the Air Force Academy." She hadn't had the grades, while good enough for the Academy, to go anywhere else she had wanted to.

Myles nodded. "He's going to try and look at it for us." Myles sighed. "This language may have clues to something even more extraordinary!"

_You have no idea._ Cally thought wryly and mildly.

"If only I could find someone who could read it…"

He'd left it wide open. Cally wanted to throw herself into the chair in front of his desk and spill everything, and not for the first time. She just wanted to take some of the weight of everything off of her shoulders. Cally was very aware that he was watching her intently as she opened her mouth to reply, and then closed it again. When she did speak, the words sounded terrible in her ears. "Sorry, if I could read it…"

Myles looked disappointed, but he nodded. "My friend Ian, the office three doors down the hall, needs someone to help his interns for a bit. Do you mind?"

"No." Cally said softly, shaking her head. "I'm currency, remember?"

"Ian has not come in yet." Myles' voice was stern and Cally felt the she'd hurt him, betraying his trust. It would be better if he said something different, but he wouldn't. "His head intern, Matthew, seems to be running everything. He'll be waiting for you in the office."

"Ok. Do you still want to have lunch with me?"

"Of course."

Cally turned to leave, but Myles spoke again.

"Cally…" Myles sounded hesitant.

"Yeah?"

"You would tell me, wouldn't you, if you could read the script?"

Cally paled visibly. This was hitting much too close. She had to dispel this now, or he'd ask questions she knew that she couldn't answer, but at the same time, she wanted to make everything right. Cally walked to the desk, placed her coffee cup on it and sat gingerly on the chair across from her best friend, as if it would break.

"Myles, if I knew anything about the writing, I would tell you if I could."

Myles nodded, but his eyebrows snapped together, the words had not sunken in yet, not shown him their true meaning, though his subconscious told him that something was off, but his face was blank and Cally suddenly felt like she'd destroyed the world.

"If you-" He began, but then caught sight of her face. Cally seemed, in a word, frightened, almost pleading with him to stop, not verbally, but she was clearly trying to tell him something that she could not actually say. He'd been worried that she'd lie outright, that would have been worse, but she wasn't, not entirely.

The words sank in. '"If I could."

They resounded in his head. They confused him. Did it mean that she did know something about the script, or that she did not? He wouldn't ask again, Myles knew that. If she decided to tell him, then she would.

* * *

Martha was becoming increasingly suspicious about their 'day off'. For one thing, the sugar high, nearly bouncing Time Lord, seemed to be going somewhere specific, refusing to answer any questions about their destination. 

"For the tenth time, where are we going?" She'd come to the conclusion that this regeneration of the Doctor wasn't good with sugar and resolved to keep him far away from it in the future.

"Martha! Breathe!" He grinned infuriatingly. "Smell that lovely London air, well alright, slightly stuffy. Still, enjoy it!"

Martha had to smile at the absurdity of the situation. "You know, if you're serious about this enjoying thing, I think a coffee is going to be needed." She nodded towards a nearby coffee shop.

"Right! We'll get one after we catch our Tube train."

"Fine, after we catch our – why are we going on the Tube?" Martha asked.

"So we can get to Piccadilly Station."

"And why are we going there?"

"So we can break into Cally's apartment."

"I shouldn't have asked should I?"

"Nope. Another jelly baby?"

* * *

Outside of Cally's apartment door, the Doctor was using the sonic screwdriver on the lock. The door clicked open. Once Martha shut the door behind them, she started to look around their new acquaintances' apartment. It was bare for the most part, a television sitting in the living room across form a small, fairly new loveseat. The kitchen was filled to the brim with food at least, Cally apparently liked cooking. Her bedroom was comfortable, no sign of anything resembling military style décor. In fact, Martha was tempted to sit on the bed, it looked so comfortable. 

The Doctor however, was much more interested in the small study that should have doubled as a second bedroom. There were two different pictures on the desk, in old, battered frames. One was of a group of four people, clearly in the military. Cally was the only woman, standing in the center, dwarfed by three men, all grinning. The second was of Cally standing in front of must have been her plane. Cally was in uniform, arms crossed and leaning against the metal bird, laughing at a joke made by someone off-camera. On the side of the plane was Cally's name and her call-sign, Colonel Cally "Blue-Eyes" Everet. The plane's name was Feather-light.

The Doctor was working on the large safe to the left of the desk. It was large, one of those old fashioned safes that stood as tall as Martha, but with a newer lock. It popped open easily enough to be shameful. The Doctor raised an eyebrow. There was merely a collection of papers on each of the shelves. He grinned as he pointed the sonic screwdriver at the safe again.

To his surprise, only part of the safe popped open, near the bottom of the safe, revealing a different stack of papers much older than the modern ones. He took them out of the safe delicately. They were in the same script as the papyrus they'd found in the storeroom, and from the notation, these had come from there as well. The Doctor looked them over for a moment before calling out.

"Martha, what do you think of these?"

Martha put down the frame she had been holding and stepped over to look at the pages that her friend held. "They're like the papyrus from the Museum!"

"Yes, and she's hiding them."

"Why?" Martha asked. He usually had some insight into these things.

For once, the Doctor looked puzzled. "I don't know." He pursed his lips and pursued the pages. "It not _human_, this language. It's related to Egyptian certainly, but… If anything, it _predates _Egyptian."

Martha raised her eyebrows in surprise. "What?"

"I know! I haven't spent that much time in that period but… Here, you look at it. Can you tell what it says?"

"The TARDIS is translating right?"

"Should be."

Martha took a minute to skim the page he had handed her. "It's describing some sort of a – a battle? Against something called a Jaffa? Funny, I always thought that Jaffa was some sort of a drink."

The Doctor looked over her shoulder. "Apparently not. Look at what else as been mentioned here – gods." He pointed to a specific paragraph.

Martha kept reading. "It mentions some sort of powers. Could they really mean aliens? I mean, aliens posing as deities?"

The Doctor looked troubled. He now regretted not being more interested in Ancient Egypt. "I know of things like that happening, but not really on Earth."

"What's this?" Martha had pulled out another sheaf of papers. "I can't read this."

The Doctor looked at the top page and his eyebrows shot up. "I can only read a few symbols! That's – unusual."

The script was blocky, like something the computer would spit out when it couldn't read the characters, but far more organized and elegant. There was a diagram of some sort of device. These computer errors obviously meant something, and Cally could obviously read the script, because she had marked up the page. There was no real background information that Martha or the Doctor could read, but scrawled in the margins of the top page, and every page after that were things like 'what happened to the failsafe?' or, 'how long is this thing supposed to stay on?', and 'attempts to short circuit failed'.

"What is it?"

"I have no idea." The Doctor's voice was low, indicating a level of worry high into the stratosphere.

"Should we ask her?"

"No. Not yet." He took the papers from her and put them back into the safe in their proper order. "We have to find out why she's here."

"You don't believe in her accident?" Martha had seen the pain in the other woman's eyes and thought that she hadn't been lying.

"I'm not sure. It seems valid." The writing in the margins had at least confirmed that. "But all of this hiding – I feel like there's more to her, and this, than she's saying."

Martha was quiet, unsure of what to say. Finally she said, "Do you want to think it over while we get coffee?"

The Doctor nodded, locked the safe behind them, then the front door, and they went in search of drinks.

* * *

Cally knocked on the door marked Dr. Ian Treblo, PhD Ancient Egyptian Studies. The door opened and Cally was greeted by a young black man, a few years younger than herself. 

"Hi!" Cally smiled. "I'm Cally Everet, I work for Myles..."

He smiled too. "I'm Matthew." He stepped out of the office and shook her hand. "And I'm really glad to see you. Dr. T is a packrat."

"Same with Myles, I think it's a trend."

"Not to this level. Come on, I'll show you the workroom."

"How long have you worked for Dr. Treblo?" Cally asked.

"Almost a year. He's a nice guy, a little tetchy, but not bad to work for."

They headed towards the storeroom reserved for Dr. Treblo, bigger than Myles's, and she soon discovered why once they'd entered it. Treblo was very definitely more of a packrat than Myles. In fact, he had just as much paper and artifacts in this room than she'd seen in the bowels of the Atlantis artifact rooms, even the ones from the SGC. There were six other interns scurrying around, filing, examining. Only three of them looked up in curiosity when she came in, but then looked up when they realized that someone new was in the room.

"Guys, this is Myles' intern Cally. She's been sacrificed for our cause."

One of the girls laughed. "If ye mean making sure the doctor's stuff get sorted, we need all the help we can get."

"Don't worry!" One of the men winked. "No lambs get slaughtered here, unless you file something in the wrong place."

Cally grinned. "With all the practice I've been getting recently, I doubt I will."

"Here, I'll show you around." Matthew said, wandering around and pointing to where different things from different periods were housed. Then he pointed to the last spot and took out a key. "This is what you'll be helping me with. Mostly manuscripts and things. It's almost the doc's little sanctuary. He spends quite a bit of time in here. I'll handle the big stuff; you'll just need to move things around."

"Sounds good to me."

"Right then." He unlocked the door and let Cally in before turning on the lights.

Cally could have died of a heart attack when the lights illuminated their pieces of history. Tacked up on the walls were scraps of papyrus, statues lined the wall on one side.

And it was all written or inscribed in Goa'uld.

Matthew noticed her pause. "You ok?"

"Yeah." Cally said, some yet unrealized idea pricking at the back of her mind. "Just a little surprised, thats all."

End Chapter Nine

* * *

Author's Note: I had a lot of trouble and a lot of fun writing this chapter, which may be why it's extra long! I hope I created some questions and plot snarls! 

Author's Note Two: Jaffa is a real soft drink, from Scandinavia, but sold throughout Europe. I laughed when I saw the label. There is something called a Jaffa cake sold in England too, but we won't deal with them. Yet.

Please review! And thanks to those who have!

May the dust bunnies live long and prosper! (Note: I don't own Star Trek either. Pity.)


	10. Disobey an order? Who? Me? Maybe

Author's Note: Oddly enough, I'm still alive! I managed to ditch the sleep zombies that are pursuing me (they don't like being ignored) for long enough to introduce the Torchwood team, and the charismatic Captain Jack Harkness to our tale. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned anything, I'd make Torchwood and Doctor Who a reality. Seriously, who doesn't want to ride around in a time machine with a drop-dead gorgeous captain?

And Now: Welcome Torchwood!

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 10: Of course I disobeyed, what kind of lackey would I be if I didn't?

The Doctor closed the doors of the TARDIS and caught Martha's eyes as she leaned on the TARDIS's control panel. "As much as I hate to admit this, but I think that we're going need some help with all of this."

Martha snorted and looked at him disbelief. "You. You're going to ask for help? From who, may I ask?"

There was a slight pause as the question hung expectantly in the air, and then the Doctor grinned, wide and exuberant. "Our favorite over-sexed captain?"

Martha grinned, but there was a slight hesitating lisp as she exclaimed. "Jack!"

The Doctor grinned in return. "I heard that implied question, Miss Martha Jones, and the only question I have for you is this: just how many over-sexed captains do you know?"

Martha's smile turned remarkably impish. "It's not how many over-sexed captains that _I_ know that worries me."

"Oi! That hurt! I'm wounded! You've dreadfully wounded me!" The Doctor flung out a hand, and collapsed dramatically against the mainframe of the TARDIS. Martha simply rolled her eyes at the Doctor's antics, but chuckled.

"You do realize he's probably going to try to proposition you?"

"Wouldn't be the first time." The Doctor muttered under his breath, making Martha laugh. He held out a hand, and the small gesture somehow looked surprisingly expectant.

"Mind if I borrow your phone?"

Martha snorted again. "That's irony, that is."

"What is?"

"You're a man who lives in a phone box, and yet, you need to borrow someone else's phone." Martha propped a hand on her hip, making no motion to get out her phone.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Martha…"

The doctor-in-training simply shook her head. "Seriously! You know what? I'm going to get you your own phone." Her face was set and determined.

The Doctor turned exasperated. "I travel through time and space. I don't need a phone, not when I have a companion who does. Now, if you'd kindly…" The Doctor, hand still outstretched, wiggled his fingers.

Martha's heaving sigh spoke volumes about her unwillingness to tangle with the Doctor. It was easier to give in. "Alright." Martha took out her phone and slapped it into the Doctor's palm. A smile tugged at her lips. "I'm still getting you a phone."

"Whatever makes you happy." The Doctor said to appease her, then dialed.

* * *

Captain Jack Harkness relaxed in his chair behind his desk in the Hub. Ianto was outside in reception, doing…whatever it was that Ianto did as a receptionist. Jack's mind wandered, far more interested in what Ianto did when he was _not _acting as a receptionist. No one else was in yet, so he had the Hub mostly to himself, not counting the pterodactyl of course.

Lost in such happy thoughts, it was to Jack's distinct displeasure that his phone rang, and to his surprise, the caller ID showed a name he never thought that he would see again.

Miss Martha Jones.

He snapped the phone off his desk, fingers stumbling in their eager attempt to flip the top open. "Hello?" Jack imbued as much warmth into his voice as possible.

"Jack!" An extremely exuberant, extremely male, and extremely familiar voice practically yelled through the phone.

A flirtatious, happy grin grew instantaneously onto the face of the head of Torchwood Three. "Well, Doc! This is a surprise." He said smoothly. "I really, really hope this is my kind of call." There was no mistaking the intent in his voice.

The Doctor's voice may have risen half a tone as he said, "And what kind of call would that be Jack? No! No, never mind, don't answer that!" Jack could practically see the Doctor flinging his free hand over his eyes, and the Captain's smile grew astonishingly more preditorial.

Verbally, however, Jack only laughed. "Spoilsport. Besides, you know what I have to offer will blow your mind. What's up? And _why_ are you using Martha's phone? You still live in a phone box, don't you?"

He heard a giggle over the phone, unmistakably Martha, followed by a male mumble of 'is everyone going to point that out?' Jack grinned; obviously Martha had brought this up as well. "Is that Martha I hear? Hi Martha! Have you reconsidered my offer?"

"Hi Jack!" Martha yelled, voice still sounding distant. There was a brief rustling noise, as if she had wrenched away her cell phone from the Doctor. "Still trying to proposition the man?" She finished, voice light.

"Always!"

"What am I, a living phone stand?" The Doctor said in mock outrage over the ensuing laughter.

* * *

Tosh smiled at Ianto as she walked into the reception of the Torchwood Hub. "Good morning Ianto!"

Ianto smiled as he pushed the entrance button to release the passage door into the main part of Torchwood. "Morning Tosh. Coffee?"

"Oh! Yes please!" Ianto flushed at the clear pleasure and longing in her voice. "Is Jack here?"

Ianto hid a smile, tilting his head away from Tosh's inquiring face. He knew that Tosh suspected something was going on between them, but was too well mannered to do more than speculate idly. "I don't think he ever leaves."

"Mm, you're probably right."

* * *

Morning in the Hub was usually quiet, so Tosh was surprised to hear the sound of Jack's laughter ringing through the subterranean structure.

"Hey! I did promise to behave!" Tosh heard him chuckle. "You do think something's going on?" There was a pause. "Alright – yeah, yeah, don't tell me anything, I'll come and give you my conclusions. Bye guys." Jack hung up and Tosh quickly tried to look busy. Jack stepped out of his office and came down.

"Good morning Tosh!" He flashed a grin that, still to this day, ran shivers down her spine. It was not that she was interested in a relationship with him, but he was undeniably handsome. "You look as radiant as ever!"

Tosh beamed. A good morning and a complement from a gorgeous man, the day couldn't get better. "Hi Jack, and thank you! Anything new on the home front?"

"Well." Jack crossed his arms and smiled sneakily. "Ianto's about to find out that his attempt to switch us all to decaf, and thereby stopping us from being our normal, jittery selves, isn't working. He was remarkably sneaky about it, this time. He only used a quarter decaf to regular. It was extremely well done, if I do say so myself."

"You switched the coffee back again." Tosh said in disbelief, trying not to laugh. Every time that Ianto tried to get them calmer, Jack would try to stop the draining of their caffeine. "You know, I think today would be a good day to check the systems in the basement of the Hub." Tosh declared, grabbing her laptop bag. She wanted to be well out of the danger zone.

Jack laughed. "Nah. I need you up here and monitoring the area until the others come in."

"Alright." Tosh nodded. "But I may slip away if Ianto finds out."

"Great." He squeezed her shoulders as he passed. "I'm going to go distract the man."

"Good luck!" Tosh opened her mouth as if to say something more, but shut it, shaking her head, though Jack's choice of words certainly fueled her imagination.

"Hey!" Jack grinned as he climbed the stairs, mock threatening. "I happen to believe myself very accomplished at distracting my employees!"

Tosh stuck her tongue out at him, but once he'd left for reception, she looked curiously up at his office. It had sounded suspiciously and horribly like Jack was planning to leave them again.

* * *

Martha took her phone back and tucked it into a pocket. "He's coming then?"

"He's coming!"

* * *

Jack had, by whatever means, managed to distract Ianto, because with every glorious sip of coffee, Tosh could feel the caffeine flowing through her veins. Owen and Gwen had trickled in as the morning progressed.

"Hey guys? Could I see you all in the conference room?" Jack's voice sounded through the intercom, tone strange. The request phrased unusually, and it had them looking at one another, uncomfortable.

Jack was standing in front of the conference screen, arms crossed and waiting as they sank into their seats.

"What's going on Jack?" Gwen asked in concern, though she struggled valiantly to keep it off her face.

Jack, grinned, but the smile didn't put the group at ease, as it normally did. There were too many layers hidden beneath it, and the shock of his previous abrupt departure still stung a little. "I'm giving you a week off." Jack stated simply, looking amused.

They stared.

"What?" Owen spluttered. They never got time off. This was _Torchwood_.

"I need to go do something in London for a week. I'm telling you so we can avoid the –bad feelings – generated by my last trip. This time, you'll know where I am, generally, and for how long. And you'll be able to contact me if anything comes up." Jack could tell they weren't happy with the news, though the rigid set of his team's shoulders eased a little at the knowledge that they wouldn't be completely bereft.

"Right." Ianto said uncomfortably, echoing everyone's sentiments. They still felt the separation, the anxiety, the terror of being without him. "So…"

Jack stared at them intently. Spreading his arms, he cajoled, "Relax! It's a paid vacation! I'll be back after a week! I promise." He dropped his arms, looking as serious as he ever had, and said again, firmly, "I promise."

"Where are you going in London?" Tosh asked. At the question, the palpable tension eased even more, Jack's reassurances working.

Jack winked at her. "Secret! But not classified, if you're all good, I'll bring you back a souvenir." He was already out of the conference room. "I'll see you all Monday!"

The rest of Torchwood sat stunned for a moment, then ran after him. There was no way in hell he was leaving just like that.

* * *

It took Jack little time to get his things together, which was unremarkable because he generally wore the same thing everyday.

Gwen, to Jack's amusement, poked him in the chest. "Don't you get into any trouble now do you hear? We're counting on you to come right back." She brushed at an imaginary speck on his shoulder.

Jack caught her arm, looking at her intently. "Gwen, I know you trust me. But I really can't tell you what this is about." A brief smile played on his lips. "At least, not yet. But I swear, I'll only be gone a week. I will never leave you guys completely in the dark like that if I can help it. Not again."

Gwen searched his face for something. "We'll have your favorite dinner waiting for you when you get back," she said instead, and finally grinned up at him.

"I'll be fine Gwen!" Jack stroked her arm as he laughed. "Nobody worry! And I'll hold you to that dinner offer," He said, picking up his sole suitcase and walking out of the office. Owen, Tosh and Ianto, more than happy to have Gwen be the one to question their boss, she did it out of habit, and genially waved as Jack made his exit. He made his way to the gear door. "And everyone stay here! That's an order!"

The door rolled shut paused just behind the doorway and began to say, "This is the part where you wave and say 'Bon voyage' or-" and the door was closed. They could hear him singing something. It sounded suspiciously like 'As Time Goes By".

There was a momentary pause as the four looked at one another, then they ran for their consoles.

"Jack got a phone call when I came in this morning." Tosh called to Ianto and Gwen who were at Gwen's console. "I'm going to trace the call to the original location."

"We can do that?" Owen asked in shock.

Tosh smiled sweetly at him. "We have sensors that record and trace every call that that comes in and goes out of the Hub."

"Oh?" Owen looked embarrassed. "And you –um- listen to these calls?"

"Yes. I do. You might want to know that someone you owe a bondage bill to calls every Thursday."

There was an embarrassed choke from Owen coupled by muffled laughter from Gwen and Ianto. Tosh looked immensely pleased with herself.

"He's leaving the garage!" Gwen reported, back on task.

"Got his car, we can track it." Ianto confirmed.

"I'm tracing the call to the London area – Central London …" Tosh reported. The computer beeped.

"The British Museum?" Owen exclaimed.

Ianto and Gwen came over to Tosh's station. "The BM?" Gwen said in disbelief.

"It could be nothing…" Tosh postulated. "It is a museum."

They all looked at one another again.

"Everyone get back here in ten minutes, packed and ready." Ianto said, already moving for the central part of the Hub. "We're going to London!"

It was never just 'nothing' with Jack.

Ever. And if Torchwood had anything to say about it, they might just get a peek into their eclectic boss's past.

The thing was, no one was sure what they'd find. Or if they'd like it.

* * *

Cally wrote letters while she was working for Doctor Treblo, not ones he'd probably have liked her to write. She changed the headings on the pages. Myles' name was neatly blackened out, and in its place was "Captain Cally Everet – Expedition Leader for the Lost Explorers in the Archives of the British Museum."

Matthew had seen her write the heading and laughed. The next morning, proving that Matthew, indeed, had too much time on his hands, had come in with expertly made expedition patches.

It would have made Daniel Jackson proud.

So twelve letters found themselves shoved into a Royal Mail bag. Each was similarly addressed, contained the same message, and were written on lovingly pilfered BM stationary.

Myles later wanted to know where his paper kept disappearing to. The interns grinned and kept their mouths shut. The fact that there were now several maps and signposts riddled around the museum basement was a complete coincidence.

End Chapter 10

* * *

Author's Note: I had to find a good way of getting Jack and the Torchwood Team to London! And seriously, as if they'd let him leave again!

Reviews are like honey, I'm drawn to them! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed!

lakewater: It will soon enough.

Pandora of Ithilien: Hmm, it would be really fun to see both Jack and Teal'c get their hands on some!

zafaran: I certainly hope so too! She really, really does deserve something for all of this! I like the new Doctor too (hence why I chose him). I went back and watched a lot of the old Doctors when I started seeing the new series, and Colin Baker is definitely one of the best! (Well, they're all pretty good! ) I'm a big fan of the fourth and fifth Doctors too. I will post the rest as quick as I can! Thank you very much!

I hope you all enjoyed it!


	11. The Trouble with Naquadah Bombs

Author's Note: I know it's been a while, but the new chapter should help to pick up the pace. And itseleven pages! See? Proves that I love you folks! 

Disclaimer: Torchwood, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Doctor Who and the Four Seasons Hotels are not mine. I'm just borrowing them lovingly. 

* * *

Miss Me Yet? 

Episode 11: The Trouble with Naquadah Bombs 

Cally winced and nearly jumped for cover every time the large, insulated box was bumped or jiggled. 

Myles was looking at her coffee mug and, though he didn't say it, was wondering how much she'd already had. 

It was five am, London time, and they were watching the very odd Egyptian 'box' being unloaded to the Museum's service entrance. While she was at the time, still working as Doctor Treblo's unofficial intern, Myles had asked her to be here, and Cally hadn't wanted to break his excitement. It was catching. By the time they'd arrived, both had actual grins on their faces. 

"Do you think we should have taken pictures before they unloaded it?" Myles asked eagerly. He'd brought a camera with him.

Cally laughed softly, reminded of the Atlantis archeological team. "Myles! You can take them when we actually get it into the museum!"

He looked disappointed, but agreed. 

The disgustingly dangerous object had to be less dangerous than the things they found littered around Atlantis, but would be just as devastating here. 

They had planned on opening the box in four days, because they needed permission from the museum and various tests had to first be preformed. All of which would have been fine with Cally, except that anything could happen in four days. 

Cally was just as relieved as she had been scared that no curious customs agent had prodded the thing in the wrong place. 

The infuriating thing was, as she looked at the severely bubble-wrapped object, that the thing looked so innocuous. If the engravings had seemed even a little menacing, Cally felt like she'd feel a little better about it. 

She kept wincing as the movers roughly wheeled the box into the museum.

* * *

Jack checked his mirrors and smiled. They hadn't even thought to use a different car. Honestly, they'd all learned how to tail someone! Even so, it was oddly amusing to know they didn't trust him enough to leave by himself. Somewhat anyway. 

It would be fun to loose them in London. He had secrets to keep, after all. 

Jack put on a 'Big Bands of the 1940's' CD, and sang loudly as he drove along.

* * *

Cally picked up a crate with the ease of a marine used to doing heavy labor. Matthew was grinning. He'd gone by most of the morning without picking up a single box. 

"You know, right about now, I'm really regretting telling you what I used to do for a living." Cally gasped. 

"Hey, if they're going to send me marines, I'm going to use them." 

"For the heavy work?"

"I've got a bad back condition." He teased. 

Cally snorted. He'd been showing off by doing actual back flips earlier; apparently he'd had a very gymnastic-filled childhood. She could almost feel the effects of the device back on Atlantis, though it was probably her imagination, as she picked up the crates and put them back again. For a moment Cally imagined what the sight must look like to someone who had naquadah in their blood, the crates disappearing from existence, and then reappearing again when she put them down. 

She realized she was grinning like an idiot when Matthew asked her if she was all right. 

"What? Sorry. I had a little bit of an – it's an idea for a practical joke."

Matthew raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing a word. "Feel like sharing?"

"Not unless you understand quantum physics."

"Do you understand quantum physics?"

"Not a bit."

"Then-"

Cally laughed. "Maybe I'll explain someday." 

Matthew was quiet as she stacked another crate, and then asked. "Does it have to do with those letters you keep sending? The odd ones?"

Cally sighed uncomfortably, and the discomfort was visible in her face. "Something like that."

"Will you tell me when it's over?" 

"If I can get permission, I'll try." She said, knowing that the answer would probably be no. 

There was a few seconds pause as she grabbed another crate. 

"What did you really do for a living, before Myles found you?" Matthew teased her. "Did you happen to work for the intelligent answer avoidance department of the White House?"

Cally gave a wide smile in between heavy breaths while stacking her crate. "I'll tell you this kid, where I worked; I didn't have to pick up so many crates." 

Another one of the interns snorted. Interestingly enough, none of them had offered to help.

* * *

A black SUV swerved in and out of London traffic two and a half hours after it had left Cardiff until it pulled over in a side road with a screech thatspoke volumesof the irritation of the occupants. 

Ianto slammed a hand in irritation on the dashboard of the Torchwoodcar and swore in three different alien languages. 

They'd managed to follow Jack into the city center, and then had promptly lost him at a thoroughfare. The driving in this city was even worse than in Cardiff. 

It was probably why aliens always flew over the place; it was too frustrating to go through by ground vehicle. 

"It's all right." Gwen tried to calm him down over Owen's snores. The doctor had fallen asleep twenty minutes into their two and a half hour drive. He also could snore loud enough to drown out an earthquake. 

"We could do a drive by of the British Museum." Tosh suggested, tapping away at her computer as she tried to find the quickest routes through the traffic. "He might have gone there directly from where we lost him."

The irony of the fact that they were tailing their boss had not escaped them. 

Ianto pouted in a way that would have made Jack very happy. "He meant to lose us." He said sharply, very cross. 

"No he-" Gwen tried to deny it, but was cut off by Ianto. 

"He meant to lose us. He won't go to the museum today. We'll just go to our hotel alright?" Ianto was unspeakably upset. The head of Torchwood was … infuriating to say the least. 

The two women looked at each other, faces showing their concern, not just for Ianto, but for Jack when Ianto got his hands on him, though Jack would probably find a way to turn the situation to his advantage, and acknowledged the plan. 

Ianto changed direction and headed towards the Four Seasons located at Canary Warf, then let the GPS guide him. 

Owen woke up in an empty SUV in the team's hotel car park some forty minutes later with a sticky note pined to the chair in front of him. 

'You looked so – cheerful. We hated to wake you up! Ask the concierge for Torchwood. – Gwen."

Owen muttered in annoyance as he stumbled towards the elevators. Cheerful? He'd give them cheerful. 

He couldn't even complain about them using the name Torchwood for their reservations. He'd used it often enough to order pizza and now wished he hadn't. So much for them being a _secret_ organization.

* * *

Ian Treblo was marching angrily towards his colleague's office. It was not his colleague he was angry with, but in this particular case, it seemed that he would make an exception. 

Myles looked up startled when his door came slamming open. "Ian! What in the world is the matter?" 

"Your intern." Ian seethed, making Myles stare. He'd never seen the man in such a state of agitation. "Where is she?"

"Cally? She's in your store room, with your other interns. Why? What has she done?" Myles asked, immediately concerned. He'd taken Cally under his wing, and he thought she'd some to him if anything was wrong. 

"Some of my papers are missing, Myles! They're gone!" 

"Gone?" Myles was bewildered. "What would Cally have to do with your missing papers?" His heart was sinking. Theft, people accused of theft normally lost their places at the museums they worked at. But for Cally, she would go back to wandering, and he did not want that. 

"I told Matthew that I had some crates and boxes to stack. Within some of my boxes were a few, vital papers. I want them found Myles. And another thing! I've found neither hide nor hair of your 'Cally' anywhere in the museum!" Ian yelled. 

Myles' face darkened. "Ian, I don't like what you are accusing my intern of, moreover, she is also a good friend. I wouldn't think that she has had anything to do with your missing papers. Perhaps you misplaced them." Myles said, as delicately as possible. He did not like to think of Cally as a thief, but it was possible that she had misplaced the papers instead of Ian. She had been a bit jumpy this morning, though that had seemed to be the coffee. And as for being a sight unseen, the girl had an unerving way of moving about quietly. 

Ian seethed, and appeared to be struggling with emotions bordering on hate, clearly visible on his face. Myles was slightly alarmed. Ian was a colleague, but he'd never seen this much violent emotion on the man's face before. 

"Then perhaps we should look at her handiwork." Ian said through tightly clenched teeth. "Together, to avoid any miscommunications." 

Myles, unnerved, agreed and tried to keep pace with the other man as they marched down the hall towards the storeroom.

* * *

"Hey Matthew! I'm going to go take my tea break!" Cally yelled across the storeroom. 

Matthew answered by yelling back. "Take the back stairs, its quicker and you'll waste less time. Take Katie with you!"

The female intern who had spoken to Cally on her first day beamed and whooped "Finally!" before following Cally out.

* * *

A few quiet minutes after Cally had left, the door of the storeroom slammed open. The interns looked up from their tasks in collective anxiety. Ian had been on a rampage recently and no one wanted to be the one to bear the full weight of his wrath. He had not actually struck anyone, but they flinched in his presence, as if he would. They did not know why, but as his demeanor had changed, somehow, horribly, they expected it of him. Myles had noticed a change, but it had not seemed so very drastic. 

"Matthew!" Ian bellowed. 

Matthew sighed and dropped his things, walking quickly over to his employer. "Yes Doctor Treblo?" He said, as calmly as he could.

"Where is she Matthew? This girl who's taken my papers."

Matthew showed visible surprise. "Taken what papers sir?"

"You let her touch my private papers!"

"I let her move them sir. This morning, after you asked me to have them moved last night." Matthew turned around and pointed towards a group of crates. "She used to be a marine; probably did more heavy lifting then I've ever done, so I let her do the heavy lifting. Nothing is missing as far as I can tell sir."

A glimmer of surprise drifted across Ian's face and one of abrupt annoyance on Myles' face. 

"Ian." Myles said simply, in a warning tone. The man had clearly been mistaken. Ian had never been known to misplace things as a rule, but this must be an exception. He'd been remarkably absent for the last week. 

Ian walked over to the boxes and began to swiftly examine them, the rest of the room waited with baited breath. Ian stood up again after ten minutes with his jaw clenched and a look of distaste on his face. "I'm sorry, Myles. I must have misplaced them, as you said."

A glimmer of a smirk crossed over Myles' lips. "So I see." He said wryly. "I accept your apology Ian; perhaps you should also apologize to Cally?" Myles' face conveyed that he would not take no for an answer. Accusations were one thing, and everyone made them, but to blindly accuse someone you had not once met, and for something so serious, was quite another matter. Stealing artifacts carried serious jail penalties. 

Ian looked annoyed, but nodded in affirmation. He looked inscrutable, as if he was acquiescing only so that they would ignore his mistake. Myles saw this, and realized he was suddenly in control of the situation. He turned to a confused Matthew. "Where is Cally?"

"I sent her on tea break with Katie." Matthew replied. "Just now, with Katie, they should be done soon."

Myles nodded. "Then send her to me when she gets back please Matthew. I will explain later if you would like." Matthew nodded as well, and then Myles left the room. Ian followed after a moment, not bothering to glance at the interns who sagged in relief when he'd left. 

Matthew felt uncomfortable. Ian had, as he'd walked into the storeroom, looked as if he'd been on the verge of being violently dangerous. He'd been working up to that point for weeks now, coming into the office less and less. He would have said something if he'd thought that it would have made any difference. It was still… there was something strange going on and he couldn't put his finger on it. Something was odd, not just form Doctor Treblo, but from Cally as well. He'd thought that they were connected, but it did not seem so. Ian had apparently never met Cally, or vice versa. 

And those letters, she only wrote three words on them. Ever. 

It was as if she was waiting for someone, and didn't think that they would ever appear. 

This definitely needed researching.

* * *

Cally laughed loudly at a comment that Katie had relayed from one of her nights clubbing. Katie was from Liverpool, so moving to London for school had been a step up for her career, and she enjoyed London just as much as Cally did. 

"And he looked like he'd been drinking for the entire night!" Katie finished. 

Cally chuckled as she took a sip of tea. The girl had some wild stories. 

"Did you get up to that much fun where you used to work?" Katie asked curiously. The interns had all been curious about the ex-USAF pilot who gave away little. 

Cally choked, and then cleared her throat. "You could say that. There are lots of practical jokes between units. Really, really bad jokes. " 

"As in…"

"Believe me; the lowest point was that someone's idea of a joke was to fill a unit's row of ready room lockers with blue Jell-O."

Katie nearly snorted into her cup. "That's… alright, it's not good, but it's not completely un-funny."

"No, it's not that bad. When they opened the lockers all the Jell-O fell out onto them about the time a blameless unit came in. The Jell-O wrestling jokes followed them around the base for weeks."

Katie laughed raucously. "Now _that _is perfect!" 

"Can you imagine? Four, cute, blushing, Marines." Cally grinned. "It's exactly what I want for Christmas." 

"I'll see what I can do." Katie teased and winked.

* * *

They noticed that the storeroom was ominously quiet as they re-entered after their tea break. 

"What's going on?" Katie asked the interns, the seven of which were too quiet for an afternoon at the museum. 

Matthew looked apologetically at Cally. "Doctor Treblo came in here accusing you of stealing manuscripts."

Cally blinked, pulling up an automatic poker face. "What?"

"I know, it's stupid, I'd told him you just moved the boxes. He's not upset anymore, I think, but Myles asked me to send you to his office."

"I'll go now." Cally said, slightly concerned. "Is Myles upset?"

"Only at Doctor Treblo, I think."

Cally sighed in relief. "Well that's good; I haven't stolen anything from this workroom, or from Doctor Treblo. Not even stationary. I have Myles for that." 

Matthew smiled as he glanced at the patch on Cally's shoulder. "That's good to hear! I don't think Doctor Carter is very upset about that either." 

Cally smiled and left for Myles's office.

* * *

"Myles?" Cally knocked on the open door a little apprehensively. "You wanted to see me?"

Myles looked up from paperwork. "Cally! Come in. I don't suppose you know why… I asked for you to come in here?" He looked slightly uncomfortable. 

"Matthew told me, he seemed a little upset by the whole thing." Cally nodded. "Doctor Treblo was accusing me of stealing." She seemed to be taking the accusation well. 

"I've never known Ian to misplace something, but he did want those boxes moved. Even so, I've told him that he owes you and apology." Myles told her, though her lack of emotion bothered him slightly and added to his discomfort. 

"Ok." Cally nodded, and then she asked, because he had seemed uncomfortable. She realized that she should have probably seemed more incensed, but Cally had to ask. "Myles, did you think that I'd stolen from him?"

Myles looked slightly guilty. "It is always a possibility around this place, most museums actually, things getting stolen. I didn't believe it, but…"

There was a pause, where Myles could have sworn that he saw a smile flicker across Cally's face, and then…

"You caught me Myles." Cally said, deadpan, arms crossed in defiance. "I'm stealing parchments because I think your friend Ian Treblo is connected with an alien plot to take over the world, or at least blow up a good portion of it." 

They stared at one another, eye hard, until Myles broke the silence with a chuckle. "Alright. I get the point. Go find Ian and take an apology from him. I don't want to hear that he was rude either."

"I'll report back straight away sah! Cally mock saluted, it didn't make her feel uncomfortable to do that anymore, and then grinned. "I guess it's true." 

"What?" Myles asked quizzically. 

"Tell people the truth and they'll totally disregard it." 

Myles made an unidentifiable noise coupled with shooing motions. Cally skipped out smiling, feeling much better. At least she'd actually told him the truth this time, and the best part was that he didn't believe a word.

* * *

Cally knocked on Doctor Treblo's door and found it locked, with no answer to her calling. He'd probably left early. After all, he'd just mistakenly accused an intern of stealing. If he'd been an American she would have expected him to be worried that she'd try to sue him.

It was a thought, certainly, but she didn't have that much income to waste. 

She turned away and headed towards the Great Court, because no one expected her back yet. Once there, Cally was surprised to see the Doctor and Martha standing outside the decorative police box that was still standing there. 

"Doc! Martha!" She waved when she was close enough. 

Martha waved back. "Hallo! How're you?" 

"Not bad." Cally said when she got closer. "I hear you two took the day off!"

"And you didn't!" The Doctor looked pleased. "In fact, you look positively chipper."

"I had a lot off coffee. He pulled me into the museum at five this morning." 

"Ouch. That's not my prescribed time to be up." Martha winced. 

"I don't know." The Doctor looked thoughtful. "I've had some of my best moments at five in the morning." 

"He never sleeps." Martha said in a conspiratorial whisper. "Probably an insomniac." 

"Never!" The Doctor declared. It was true though, he never slept for long. 

"Sure." Cally said in mock disbelief. "So why are you two back here so-" She looked at her watch. "Err, at four in the evening?" 

"A friend of ours came into town this morning and is meeting us here. He's interested in Myles' box." 

Cally nodded, hiding her hesitation. "It's why I was in at five this morning." She said with a slight smile. "It got in around then and Myles was excited."

"Aw." The Doctor teased. "Is someone sleepy?"

Cally laughed. "Maybe."

"He's been punchy all day." Martha informed her. "He's been eating these things called-"

"Jelly Babies!" The Doctor cried and, seemingly produced out of nowhere a crumpled brown paper bag and offered the contents to Cally. 

Cally, ever curious, stuck her hand into the bag and pulled out a red Jelly Baby. "Mm. This is good!"

Martha groaned. "Not you as well!" 

"What? They are good!" Call smiled innocently as the Doctor grinned as well, popping another Jelly Baby into his mouth. 

"Sugar freaks." Martha said, but gave a mock smile, showing she was just kidding. 

Cally pocketed another few Jelly Babies. "Well, have fun with your friend, and I'll tell Myles you're brining him along tomorrow."

"You're going home?" Martha asked. 

"I think so. It's been a long day." Cally said and then began to walk away. "I'll see you tomorrow!" _As long as that thing in the basement doesn't go off. _Her mind said rebelliously. 

That was the trouble with naquadah bombs and the people around them. Anything could happen.

* * *

Cally headed home after talking to Myles, only to pick up her guitar and leave once again. 

Life wasn't exactly easy, back on Earth, but at least it was becoming more normal. 

As normal as Cally's life was ever liable to get anyway.

* * *

Please Review! 

Pandora of Ithilien: Naïve? Not so much. He just likes playing with them. 


	12. Before the Storm: Part 1

Hi! This chapter is the first in a series of chapters that will detail what happens before the opening of the box (i.e. the naquadah bomb). They'll probably be long, just a warning.

Enjoy! And as always, read and review!

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 12: Before the Storm Part One

The Doctor and Martha did not have to wait for long after Cally had left for home. Twenty minutes before the museum was due to close, a man in a long military coat stepped into the glass domed enclosure of the Great Court. He looked around the surroundings as though he knew every inch of the space intimately, then his eyes lit on three familiar forms, one a blue box, the other two forms were much more welcome. A wide smile crossed his face, making it good looks downright mischievous. "Well aren't you two a beautiful sight on the eyes!"

Martha and the Doctor turned towards him and the Doctor gave a smile as wide as the immortal's, while Martha flashed a smile of her own. "Jack!" She squealed and crossed the space between them, throwing her arms around him in a hug which he tightly returned.

"Martha Jones!" Jack said, once they had pulled away from each other, the Doctor having walked up quietly behind Martha. "You look good!"

"Managed to get him to bring us to a planet filled with beaches." Martha cocked her head to indicate the Doctor. Jack didn't spare a glance for the tall man, knowing that he'd be awestruck- as always.

"And you didn't get attacked by anything?"

"Well, yeah, course we did, but it was still the beach!"

The Doctor laughed. "Not as good as Brighton, in my opinion. Hallo Jack!"

"Doc. It's good to see you. What is it exactly that you need my help with?" Jack purred, innuendo sliding around the words as he ran his eyes appreciatively over the Doctor's slim form. Doctor mock glared in return.

Jack took the glance as an invitation, and hugged him briefly but with intensity, and placed a swift kiss on the Doctor's cheek, nearly chuckling at the Doctor's shocked face. Exceedingly pleased, Jack's grin widened. "So." Jack said, looking at the TARDIS. "The British Museum, huh? Wouldn't have picked this place as a trouble spot."

"Cardiff wouldn't be my first guess either." Martha smiled, elbowing Jack.

"I dunno." The Doctor teased. "Anywhere Jack tends to be…"

"Hey!" Jack laughed. "You're here too, that makes this an international danger zone! We both attract trouble! We should just invite our enemies and have done with it!"

"Oi! You're right!" Martha teased them. "Both of you stay here, I'm going to be in the TARDIS until the danger is over!"

* * *

They ended up going to a restaurant that Martha knew fairly well, one generally populated by noisy, relatively drunk, medical students, leaving no fear of being overheard. Or, rather, overheard by someone who could make sense of it in the morning.

"Other than this being a masked social visit because you missed me, my body and stunning good looks," said Jack once they were seated, "What was the emergency?"

The Doctor and Martha exchanged glances.

"There's something a bit odd going on in the Museum." Martha finally said. "Specifically, around one woman."

"She's very nice, and I doubt her motives, if she has any, are to harm anyone." The Doctor said, feeling as if he should put something in as a defense of Cally's character. She wasn't doing anything wrong that they could tell, just lying about the box. Unfortunately, that was just as bad, because of the fact that whatever could be in the box, may not have good intentions, if there was anything in it at all. However, finding out was half the fun. "The thing is, Jack… She has naquadah in her blood, massive amounts of it. I've never seen a human with that large and amount. Frankly, I'm unsure how she's alive, or if she is an alien wearing the best disguises I've seen in ages."

Jack stared. "Naquadah?" He asked, taken aback in disbelief. "You're sure?"

The Doctor patted his top pocket, where the sonic screwdriver lay. "Very sure."

Jack looked at Martha for conformation, and then back to the Doctor. "Humans, unless they've been through time shouldn't have any naquadah anywhere near them! Has she-"

The Doctor shook his head. "That's the second thing I checked from my scan. She's never been through time."

"Then how-"

"Exactly." The Doctor nodded. "How?"

"The other thing is that there is this artifact, a box, with odd writing on it. Just arrived at the Museum this morning, but we've been finding parchments with similar writing for a week now, and while we can't read it…" Martha said.

"She can." Jack finished with a frown.

"She won't say that she can, but it's obvious." The Doctor added. "It's as if – as if she's afraid of telling someone. That, of course is not very reassuring."

Jack chewed his bottom lip before speaking. "So, how am I going to meet her?"

"We told her that you were a friend of ours interested in Egyptian - that's where it was found - artifacts. You'll be meeting her tomorrow."

"My team followed me here; they'll probably show up tomorrow as well. I can make sure that they won't say anything if you don't want them to. You'll have to be prepared to meet them too. My Torchwood is a pretty suspicious bunch."

"Me? I'm haven't a suspicious bone in my body!" The Doctor protested.

Jack smiled, eyes smoldering as he raked his eyes over the Doctor's slim form. "You sure? I'd be happy to search for you."

Martha dissolved into laughter as the Doctor began to admonish the other man.

* * *

Myles had left Cally back in his storeroom, sorting out his papers. After the disruption in the general archives he felt it was better to have her out of the way than near Ian. She'd come and told him that the Doctor and Martha had a friend would also like to see the box. The Doctor's credentials seemed authentic enough, so his friend's were probably as well. He sat heavily in his leather chair that had sat behind his desk for nearly twenty years. It was nice to see fresh faces in the Museum, new people to talk to, when old friends seemed to be turning more often to anger and mistrust than to hunting out the truth.

* * *

Cally poked the nearest pile of papers. It teetered, but remained upright. It would have probably been more interesting had it fallen. The Doctor and Martha would be in soon, so she'd have a little help. Matthew and Katie had already been by to say hello, but looked in horror at Myles' mess. Even Treblo wasn't this bad. Myles had shown up with a cart of even more first thing in the morning. On top of the pile had been a pamphlet for the RAF.

One of the primary reasons she didn't actually go and sign up was because she'd probably have to start out from the bottom ranks. That was what she thought anyway. Probably, unless she had some connections, which she didn't. She slapped the pamphlet shut and placed it atop the pile.

The pile exploded, papers flying in every direction. Cally started to laugh, papers whizzing around her head, and then, just for the fun of it, threw some of the falling papers back into the air. There was a cough at the door, turning around with a smile Cally saw Matthew standing there with a cup of tea.

"You know," he said. "This wasn't what I thought Myles had in mind when he said to 'sort' his papers."

Cally blinked. "Um… Oops?"

Matthew snorted. "I think it's a bit late for that. I saw those papers fly."

Cally giggled. "Is that tea for me, or did you come to help me clean all of this up?"

Matthew smiled, holding out the cup. "Not a chance, unless you're willing to help me pick up a few more boxes."

Cally grabbed the cup and stuck her tongue out at him. "Not for all the tea in the world!"

Matthew grinned teasingly. "You Yanks, it must be something about tea that offends you. First the Boston Tea Party and now you won't help a poor young boy with his work."

"Hey!" Cally bumped his arm. "No dissing the forefathers, ye hear? I might as well have something to say about yours, and we don't want it to come to that!"

"Alright, alright." Matthew conceded. "You free for lunch? We're got another surprise for you, better than the patches."

"How much better?" Cally asked suspiciously.

Matthew's grin widened. "You'll see!"

As he walked away Cally yelled after him. "You have waaaay to much time on your hands Matthew!"

"Don't tell Treblo that!" He yelled back.

"If I ever get to meet him…" Cally muttered under her breath.

* * *

The Doctor and Martha wandered into the room a few minutes later. Martha took one look and snorted, turning her head away to hide her laughter.

"Looks like someone knocked over a pile in here!" The Doctor said in bewilderment.

Cally looked up from the pile that she was lying down on, eagle-spread. "I was bored."

That made the Doctor smile. "Nonsense! Making a mess is in no way boredom, just a bit of creativity at work!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah!" The Doctor drawled. "Back home we used to make a mess of radiation spills all the time out of boredom, or at least I did anyway. Kept the teachers running around like mad hatters, school was much more fun that way."

"Radiation spills." Cally said flatly, not believing a word. She glanced at Martha, who rolled her eyes as if to say to ignore him.

"Yeah!" The Doctor nodded happily.

"Right…" Cally got up and stepped up to them and stuck her hands in her pockets. "So…want to help me pick up or are you going to tell me about your dinner last night?"

"Nosy!" Martha teased.

"What?" Cally shrugged. "I live alone in London! I have almost literally no social life outside of this place!"

"Now that's sad." The Doctor said, raising his eyebrow in mock mocking.

"Well, unless someone offers me something else." Cally said. "_Not_ in the RAF, but something exciting – just as exciting – as my old job, I might reconsider."

"You could always go back to your old one." The Doctor said, without watching his words.

He knew he'd mis-stepped when Cally froze in her place, a shadow swiftly passing heavily over her face. She said nothing for a moment, mouth slightly open in, to his eyes, if not horror, but sudden pain. "No." She whispered, almost rasping. Martha hit the Doctor's elbow with her own, reprimanding him silently. "I can't. There isn't-. I can't. "

(Author's Note: The Doctor and Martha still kinda/sorta still believe in the accident explanation, which, ironically, is the correct one!)

Cally shook her head, fighting off tears. "There's nothing like it." She said softly. "Never anything else like it." She wouldn't look at them.

"I'm sorry-" The Doctor began, but Cally shook her head.

"Just – um – that pile over there need to be sorted. I started it earlier." Cally pointed to one in the far corner. "I'll pick this one up, I did make the mess. We can work until your friend gets here ok?"

Martha, who had been mute, nodded and replied softly. "Ok."

Silence ruled the storeroom for a while. The Doctor picked up the RAF pamphlet, now slightly crumpled. He wondered what she'd used to do, being a marine was one thing, that he could understand, but there had to be more to it. If she ever told him, maybe…he'd give her a ride in the TARDIS with Martha. Martha needed someone else to talk to from time to time. Whatever her previous job had been, it was couldn't be as exciting as going to other planets, even with whatever had caused the naquadah buildup. He liked Cally, and he'd taken more than one Companion before. Martha would certainly enjoy the company. There was a nagging feeling within him, one that he'd learned to listen to over the years. Cally was important. He just wished he knew why.

* * *

Owen paced outside the girl's hotel room in belligerent impatience, while Ianto leaned serenely against the opposite wall and smirked at him.

"How long can they take?" Owen muttered in frustration, clenching his fists.

Ianto chuckled. "They're women Owen. You remember women don't you? They habitually take longer." (Speaking as one, yes, yes we do.)

Owen stopped pacing long enough to glare at the other man. "Oh very funny Ianto. Just because you don't have to deal with them-" The man was dating another man after all.

"Is that dissent I hear out there?" Gwen's voice came through the still locked door, filled with laughter.

"You bloody well bet it is!" Owen nearly shouted back. "You two are taking forever!"

"We'll take longer if you squabble Owen!" Tosh cried.

"Could we please hurry up?" Ianto said evenly. "Only I'd like to eat something before we go to the British Museum to find where Jack's got to."

There was silence for a moment, and then the door opened, revealing Gwen and Tosh, already ready. Owen gaped, to Ianto's laughter.

"Well?" Gwen said with an impertinent grin. "What are we all standing around here for? Let's go get some breakfast."

Owen fought the urge to strangle her, in a completely colleague – preserving way of course.

Breakfast went in a hurried fashion.

* * *

Cally sat with her chin on her fist and stared moodily around the room, pushing papers with her foot towards a nearby, sorted pile. She had delegated her tasks to the other two, not really talking to them, but now kind of regretted silencing them. It was too quiet.

A pile of RAF pamphlets were suddenly dumped on her head. "What the-?" She looked up to see the Doctor standing over her with a grin. "You've got a terrible lot of these!"

Cally laughed and rolled her eyes. "That, I know."

"Why?" The Doctor said, with his bright, childish, impudent grin.

"Myles wants me to join." Cally laughed, pulling a pamphlet off of her head. "And he's being a little….persistent about it."

The Doctor glanced at the pamphlets covering the floor. "Oh really?" He grinned. "I never would have guessed."

Cally snorted and leaned down to pick up the pamphlets that had landed near her. "It's not that I don't want to fly again, but…"

"You're just not sure if you want to abandon the USAF." She blinked at him owlishly, as if questioning if the man had become omniscient. He grinned. "Well, its true isn't it?"

Cally made a face. "Yeah… It's just…I've spent most of my life in the USAF, I hated leaving. It wouldn't be the same, going into another service. I'd feel like…like I was betraying them somehow."

The Doctor sat down on the pile next to her. "But it really wouldn't be."

Cally sighed; she'd had similar thoughts to this. "I _know_, but it still _feels_ that way. I don't want to file for the rest of my life, but I don't know what else I can do. I can't go back to the USAF, not right now anyway."

"Sounds like you're in a rut." The Doctor said, taking a random scrap of paper and beginning to fold up a paper airplane, with a design Cally had never really seen.

"I suppose so." Cally smiled slightly. "I just wish something would happen, something as good as Myles randomly helping me. I'm not ungrateful for what Myles did; I'm having a lot of fun, but-"

"It's just not the same." The Doctor finished for her.

Cally nodded in the affirmative just as Martha's phone rang.

"Martha Jones." Cally and the Doctor looked at her. A smile lit her face and she glanced in their direction. "It's Jack!"

A wide smile lit the Doctor's face while Cally looked at them both in confusion.

"Our friend who's interested in the box." He quickly explained. "Where is he?" He asked Martha.

"In the Great Court."

"You're going to go meet him?" Cally asked.

"If you don't mind." The Doctor said.

Cally looked surprised. "Mind? No! Why would I? He's your friend, and you get to leave behind the paperwork!"

That made Martha smile. "We'll bring you back a cup of tea, we promise, and maybe the promise of a break. We have to collect Myles anyway, so we can work him round."

Cally smiled as well. "That'd be great, thanks."

As the pair said goodbye and walked out the door, Cally yelled. "Have fun!"

* * *

"So your friend is…"

"He's a part of an archaeological team." The Doctor lied convincingly. "A very obscure one. Unusual too, just as unusual as he is, but top rate."

"Well then, I look forward to meeting him." Myles said, very impressed. Since Cally has started working here, the most interesting people had shown up.

Martha, Myles and the Doctor were just walking into the Great Court, Myles looking avidly around for the mysterious visitor. The Doctor appeared to know where the man was going to be, because he approached the Police Box from behind, and led the other two, skirting around it.

Myles' first impression of the man was one tinged with surprise, for one thing, the man was fairly young, and was sporting clothing more commonly worn in World War Two than in present time. The man turned around at the approaching footsteps of the Doctor and gave the other man a bright smile.

"Hi Doc!"

The Doctor gave him a smile that was just as bright. "Hello Jack." They shook hands.

"Hi Jack." Martha opted for the hug again.

Jack stuck his hand out towards Myles. "Hi. You must be Myles Carter."

"I am, lovely to meet you-"

"Captain Jack Harkness." Jack said with a smile. "Good to meet you as well. And this-" Jack said, mischief in his eyes, turning around to smile warmly at the four members of Torchwood who had just walked into the Great Court, and were staring, stunned at their leader. "Is my team, who disobeyed orders and came to the Museum anyway."

It was hard to tell who's reactions were more spectacular, the Torchwood team's – a mixture of shock and disbelief – and Martha and the Doctor's – an attempt not to burst out laughing.

Myles observed this and started smiling. Obviously this Jack Harkness, Martha and the Doctor were having a joke at the team's expense, though he was uncertain as to what this joke was.

Gwen was the first to speak. "Err, hello." She nodded towards the Doctor, Martha and Myles, trying to avoid, the bright and annoying smile Jack was flashing them. "I'm sorry we were so - unexpected. I'm Gwen Cooper; this is Ianto Jones, Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato."

Myles looked even more amused. "Lovely to meet you as well, unfortunately I have to go to a meeting, but-" His eyes twinkled. "I'll see if I can't get my assistant to help."

* * *

The crowd at the bar had been huge last night, big enough to warrant an encore, which had been surprising. The pay had been a lot better too. Seemed the owner was taking notice of the ecstatic, and more importantly – paying- crowds she was drawing in.

Cally smiled at the memory of her fingers softly running over the strings of the guitar. Back on Atlantis, she'd never had so much time to practice. A hesitant thought brushed her mind. _Maybe this is for the best._ Cally's eyes widened, and then shook her head in panic. _No! _She tried to clear it from her brain. This wasn't… sure she was having fun here, but Atlantis was home. She could talk to people there about the things she'd seen, the aliens, and the near death experiences. Here... she had Myles, Matthew, Martha, the Doctor and her guitar. They were wonderful certainly, and wouldn't trade them for the world, but, there was still something missing. Cally picked up a bunch of papers. Working would take her mind off of it. _It has to._

The storeroom phone rang and Cally crossed the room to pick it up.

"Carter Storeroom."

"Hello Cally."

"Hi Myles, what's up?"

"How would you like to stop filing?"

* * *

Back up in the Great Court, Cally's yell of absolute assent through the phone startled everyone.

"YES!"

* * *

A very cheerful Cally walked quickly into the Great Court, eyes shining and a giant grin on her face. She bounced into place next to Myles. "Hi." She said, clearly enthused.

Jack had one of his own, from her enthusiastic reaction, she was someone he'd like, and from the Doctor's description of her, she liked to be just as active as she did.

Jack held out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."

As Cally took his hand, Myles felt it necessary to reply for her. "This is Captain-"

"Formerly." Martha and the Doctor chorused, grinning at him when Myles turned around to glare admonishing at them.

"Cally Everett."

Cally rolled her eyes. "It's just Cally. I'm Myles's intern."

"But formerly in the…"

"USAF." Cally sighed.

"I was RAF." Jack smiled. "A while back. When did you leave?"

"Almost nine months now."

"Wow, not as long ago as I thought!"

"Yes sir! Kind of miss it."

"Anyone would. What did you used to fly?"

"F-15C's, spent some time in a Lockheed." Cally said with a shrug. "Some other craft I'm not really supposed to mention."

Jack grinned. "I know what you mean! You should have seen what I used to drive-err, well, maybe you shouldn't."

That pulled another grin onto Cally's face.

"Yeah… I know what you mean." Cally turned to Myles, putting a slight bit of trust in Jack. She didn't know him well enough yet to trust him fully. "So what am I doing that I don't have to touch another file folder again?"

Myles laughed. "You'll be walking around with them, showing them about the Museum, and the box."

Cally grinned. "I'm happy with that!"

Myles smiled disarmingly at Jack and the Torchwood team. "Make sure she doesn't get into trouble."

Cally rolled her eyes again. "I don't get into trouble!"

Both Martha and the Doctor gave little coughs of laughter, to the amusement of Jack and Myles, while the Torchwood team seemed out of their element again.

"Like I said." Myles said, this time to all of them. "Keep her out of trouble." He pointed to Cally. "And no wandering! Anywhere at any time!"

"But Dad……." Cally pouted, making Jack grin and bringing a slight smile to Gwen's face. This girl was definitely enjoying herself in this environment.

Myles rolled his eyes. "Right, if I'm inclined to believe you. Which I don't. I still expect them to watch you. Now, shoo."

* * *

End Episode 12:

Before the Storm: Part 1

* * *

Please read and review! Thanks to those who already have!

Pandora of Ithilien: It is very easy to rent a car in London. From experience though, you have to pick who you rent from because you don't want them to die on you in the middle of a London rotary. Trust me on this one. Yeah, Cally doesn't know how to turn off the bomb. It would be really, really, nice of the SGC to have naquadah bomb disarmament as standard training, but I don't know if they'd offer it, purely on the basis that they can't train all of them for everything. I could be wrong! Cally could have just not been paying attention! : D


	13. Before the Storm: Part 2

The second part of Before the Storm! I had all four of my wisdom teeth last week, so this was penned later because I was in bed on painkillers! Lucky, I'm back on my feet and decided to write this chapter in celebration!

Note: No infringement intended! I own nothing!

Author's Note: /Words spoken in Goa'uld/

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Before the Storm Part II:  
Episode 13: Just When Things Get a Little Better

Cally headed off towards the storeroom almost skipping in glee, motioning the others to follow while Myles headed off in another direction. Martha walked on Cally's right. Jack, after looking Cally over in a not so investigative manner, walked on the intern's left. Cally felt like she should be observing everyone at once, though at the moment, they were all observing her.

Jack noticed that Cally embodied the physical description of a marine, her newly purchased business suit fit delicately over toned meticulously toned muscle. She appeared relaxed in this mixed company, and seemed to be at ease around Martha and the Doctor, which made him a little jealous.

"So Captain Cally…" He said, unknowingly adopting Myles' habit of addressing Cally with her rank, he decided to break the ice even further as they walked, letting his team stew for a moment.

"Yes?" Cally smiled, thought she nearly corrected Jack's use of her rank. Jack had that overwhelming effect on people, where they couldn't help but smile.

"I take it you don't like to file."

Martha snorted into her hand, giggling. Jack and the Doctor looked at her, the Doctor with a grin on his face. He knew exactly how much Cally hated to file. Ianto, who like the rest of the Torchwood team had been listening in, smiled as well. Just because it was his job didn't mean that he liked filing either.

"Yeah, you could say that." Cally said, embarrassed. "Sorry, Myles has this giant storeroom and I've been cleaning it out for the past few weeks, and…it's been getting to me, I've never seen that much paperwork in my life." Cally explained, eying Jack and his 'team' as well. They looked nothing like a supposed team of archaeologists. For one thing, with the exception of Jack in his World War Two era clothing, they were all dressed reasonably stylishly, as if it was a uniform. It was a uniform she'd like to wear, it looked extremely comfortable.

"Myles even bought her a bronze letter opener." The Doctor informed them all, a mischievous grin on his face. "Nice and shiny."

"Oh, don't remind me." Cally groaned, putting a hand to her face, making Martha laugh again, making even Owen crack a smile. "Matthew was making me lift boxes because I was a marine. Can you believe that I left flying planes for this? With flying I could pretend that I had forgotten the paperwork!"

Jack was a little surprised, she didn't seem that cut up about it, until he saw her face, and her smile had gone away for a moment.

"Aw, you love it! You're having fun!" Martha teased. "We've reached the next layer of archival material, at least! And you've got the frequent tea breaks!"

Then the smile was back, and Cally stuck her tongue out at the other woman. "Well, I guess it's true…You're the one I have to blame for my addiction to scones!"

"You at least get to eat them." The Doctor retorted. "Martha keeps taking mine."

That brought laughter from both Cally and Jack, who grinned at each other to the amusement of their mutual friends.

* * *

They entered the hallway that led to the room where the box was being held, near Myles' storeroom, as well as Ian's. As they walked, Matthew wandered into the hallway ahead of them, looking at a notepad. He heard the footsteps and looked up. For a moment Matthew blinked at the size of the party following Cally and then waved. "Oi! Picked up some more stragglers for Myles then?" He called.

"I wish." Cally said, coming closer as the Torchwood team looked at the other intern with interest, though they need not have worried about him much. Matthew was unlikely to ever hurt a fly. "That would mean I could get rid of all the paper in the storeroom really, really quickly. This is a team supposed to look at the box, Myles sent me to take them down! I'm showing them around while they're here. No more filing!" She sounded ecstatic.

Matthew pouted, muttered something about not having anyone to pick up his boxes for him, but then perked up. "You can still have lunch?"

"If you don't mind a few guests." Jack and the Doctor looked at one another, both wondering if they could get more information out of her that way. The Torchwood team noticed, saying nothing. They accepted the lunch invitation by default.

"Nope, it's perfect!" Matthew winked, and then walked back into another one of the rooms. "Oh, and I took more of your letters to the post!"

"Thanks." Cally smiled, waving goodbye as they passed. She'd written what felt like a billion and a half of the letters destined for Atlantis in the past few days. They were really good for relieving stress, though the price of postage was killing her.

"And that was…" Jack asked when Matthew had walked off.

"Matthew." Cally supplied. "He's an intern for another curator. This is it." She put her hand on a door. "We have to put on protective gloves if you want to touch it, though, I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

"Why?" Jack asked. Martha and the Doctor were glad that he had asked as they looked on, as Cally knew that they were at least a little suspicious of her.

Cally pulled a face. "I'm not so sure myself, I'm not an archaeologist." She tried to lie convincingly, though certainly the museum's reasons were far more plausible than hers were, and certainly more believable. "But, it's something to do with keeping it secure for restoration, until they can open it tomorrow with all of the right tools." Internally, she knew that they had better not open it.

She had a plan; at least, she had the semblance of one. She'd come across a method of diffusion in one of the old mission files, and had bought the right equipment. Now all she needed was the right time window – and some luck – more than anything, she needed luck. She almost felt like she was owed some, after the device, and now the naquadah bomb. Hopefully, she'd be able to do it this afternoon.

Jack nodded, knowing that he needed to stay on Cally's good side in order to learn more about her. They followed Cally in. This was, in fact, Cally's first time seeing the box properly.

It was actually quite beautiful.

The whole box was decorated in gold, the designs, lines criss-crossing delicately over each other. The hieroglyphics were just as delicate, the patterns of Goa'uld text between them, all describing the depicted scenes. The panels had not been opened yet; she remembered them from previous interactions with the things, which was a very good sign. It meant that no one had touched it since they'd put it on the table they were using.

It was still beautiful, no matter that it was a weapon, but it seemed that with the Goa'uld, all the best weapons were.

Jack looked at it with some interest, it was certainly beautiful enough, but he was looking more at Cally's body language than at the box. From the moment she'd come into close proximity to it, she'd become extremely tense, without trying to seem that way, like she was trying not to show her anxiety. She was good at trying to hide it, but he was better at reading it, and her body language scared him. Cally was looking at the box like it would hurt her, explode at any second. It was more likely something inside the box. Whatever it was, it seemed like it wouldn't just yet because she wasn't exactly running away screaming in panic. Still, there was something in the Doctor and Martha's worries, and Cally's body language was the key.

He could perhaps have Tosh scan the box later, because Cally was clearly afraid of the thing, but he wanted to get to know Cally better before he made any decisions. She liked flying, which he had been happy to discover. If everything turned out ok, and he didn't have to arrest her, he'd like to get to know her better, maybe find out what planets she'd been to.

* * *

Jack didn't get a chance to speak with his team until near lunchtime, when Cally wandered off with Martha and the Doctor, who were still on Museum payroll, to see what Myles wanted to do with the team, leaving Torchwood back in in the cavern of the Great Court.

Jack smiled at them. He was happy to see them, but he was still going to chew them out.

"It's almost amazing. I tell you to take a week off, spend some time by yourselves, and instead of taking a week of joy and relaxation, you follow me to London. Where – incidentally - you decided that the best thing to do would be to interfere with a personal investigation. I'm amazed at your dedication, really, I am, but this time, it's not really necessary."

Ianto was the first to speak. "We didn't mean to-"

"Interrupt? Well, you did. I was going to do exactly what I said I would, come up here for a week, see some friends, maybe do some freelance work with said friends, who, I might add, I haven't seen since the last time I went off with them."

Tosh's eyes widened. These were the people Jack had run off with, but which people?

"And so, you have – by showing up at the Museum – forced me to introduce you as my team. Which, wouldn't be so bad, but I had said I was coming alone. Now, I get to explain your presence too. It's not that I'm not happy to see you, because I am." He smiled a little trying to show it. "Just a little surprised."

"Jack, we didn't mean to disrupt anything." Gwen said, trying to stem the flow a little. "We just didn't want you to leave us alone again."

Jack sighed, the words having the desired effect. "I said I wouldn't, and I meant it." He looked at them all, pondering for a moment, eyes sad. It wasn't that he didn't want to include them in this, they would all probably be very helpful, but he hadn't wanted to introduce them to the Doctor and Martha, to a side of his life that he cherished.

While the face of Torchwood always changed from decade to decade, even while he didn't, the people who understood him the best, Martha, Rose, and the Doctor most of all, were the most constant sources of encouragement and stability for him. Even if the Doctor was, and would probably always, be somewhat of a mystery to him, but somehow Jack liked it that way.

He hadn't wanted to expose them to the Doctor. They already had enough trouble dealing with aliens coming to Earth, let alone that some might be helpful in a destructive kind of way. He sometimes wondered how they would react if he told them he hadn't even been born on this planet. He had decided long ago never to tell them that. Jack had secrets, and that was one of them.

"Now." He said, keeping his arms crossed. "Since you're here, I'm guessing that you want in, because if I didn't let you into the investigation you'd all go stir crazy." He loved to play with them, not enough to make them mad. He did not want to get punched again.

The team didn't know what to say. Strictly, it was fairly true; they all had their own side projects back in Cardiff.

Jack sighed again, this time in acceptance. "We'll talk about this later. In the meantime, there will be a few guide rules. One, you will _not_ do anything without my say so. Two, you will _not_ say anything without my say so. The people I used to work with are brilliant, brilliant people. I don't care what you do, but you will _not_ harass them, malign them, or try anything to hurt them. Do you understand me? These people are like _family_."

They nodded mutely. Jack was scary when upset.

He smiled widely. "Good! Since we're understood. Act natural! You just became archeologists."

* * *

They ended up leaving the museum for lunch, going to a nearby gastropub that Myles had taken Cally to once.

Matthew, Katie and the other interns had met them there. Matthew with a canary grin on his face, carrying a plastic bag, in fact, they were all grinning. Cally's eyebrows raised in sudden dismay.

"Uh oh."

"What?" Gwen asked, looking in that direction. Jack and the others looked too.

"That smile," Cally said with one her own. "When they all have it, it always means trouble."

Martha looked at the Doctor. "Yeah, it looks like his."

"Oi!"

Jack laughed. "You should have stayed in the TARDIS." The Torchwood team looked puzzled not knowing what a TARDIS was, but Jack seemed like he was having fun. He was obviously closer to this Doctor and Martha Jones than he was to them, but was very interested in the intern that he had just met. Cally didn't register the odd name, watching as the interns approached.

Martha punched Jack lightly on the shoulder as the interns slid into place at their table and introduced themselves to Torchwood. They already knew Martha and the Doctor.

Matthew turned to Cally with excitement before anyone else could get a word out after the introductions. "We have a surprise for you."

"Oh?" Cally asked, amused.

"So, you know how we made those patches?"

Cally nodded, though the non – intern population of the table became puzzled.

"Well, Myles mentioned that the coat you wear-" He glanced at the jacket draped over the back of Cally's chair. "Is the same one you wore on missions with the USAF."

Cally picked it up. It was her Atlantis jacket, sans patches. She couldn't bear to leave it behind when she'd left. "It is." She said fondly, not noticing the increased interest of three people at the table. "It's been through a lot."

Jack was noticing that too, and the fact it was unlike most military jacket's he'd ever seen. For one thing, it was designed to be worn through nearly everything, and was more intact than it looked like it should have been. There were faint areas where it looked like blood had been.

Matthew took it from her and thrust the package he had been cradling into her hands. "Open this!"

Cally looked from him, to the other interns, to the package, and then opened it delicately, expecting something to come jumping out at her. She blinked at her present for a moment in shock, and then looked at Matthew's smiling face with a mixture of amazement and disbelief.

It was an exact replica of her black jacket. Cally didn't care where he'd got it, didn't want to know how, but it was the most amazing gift she'd thus far ever received. Where her Atlantis patches would have been, new ones had been added. On the left shoulder was an inscription in Latin, in silver on a blue rectangle with a black border. It read 'Qui tutela scientia'. Those who guard knowledge. The other side bore a peach and gold circle emblem, like a staircase, on which the words "Explorer of the Archives" was drawn in black.

Cally was speechless. It was clear they had put time and effort into this, though she didn't know why. Emotions suddenly caught up to her, and despite the tears in her eyes, Cally smiled. "Guys." She was aware that her voice was breaking. "It's _perfect_."

"Explorers of the Archives?" Jack asked, her reaction piquing his interest, though he thought that it probably had nothing to do with the jacket itself.

"Cally wrote it on a letter once." Matthew explained to the non- interns. "The Lost Explorers of the Archives of the British Museum. And since that _is_ what we do as interns, we adopted it. That's the first one." He said to Cally, pointing to the front of the jacket. "It's even got your name on it."

It did. Hers read 'Intern Captain Everet'. Cally chuckled, she had one more title for Myles to use.

"We're getting them too." Katie laughed at her reaction to the name patch. "Matthew wanted to give us ranks, but we vetoed the idea. You were already a Captain so it made sense to put it on."

Cally nodded. "I love it. Thank you very, very much." The warm smiles on their faces formed a warm feeling in her stomach. It was funny, but it felt like they were welcoming her to a sort of family that she'd had on Atlantis. She would wear this jacket with just as much pride and love as she had her Atlantis jacket.

* * *

They were all happily masticating fifteen minutes later and Cally was looking absently at the stream of customers coming in and out of the bar area. They were words that she would never have thought to hear on Earth. Words spoken in Goa'uld.

"Ti'u, lek tol."

Her head snapped up from a forkful of potato, immediately on the alert as she scanned the area more determinedly. Her eyes lit on the form of a tall, heavily muscled man in civilian clothes, but more importantly, on his forehead was a small gold insignia. He was walking away from another, and she swiftly took in as much detail about the insignia as she could.

"Cally?" Martha's voice broke her concentration. Cally blinked at her.

"What?" She realized they were all staring at her. "Sorry, I – I think I forgot something back at the Museum, I need to-go." She put some money on the table and left quickly, snatching up her present, trying to follow the Jaffa. The first one she'd spotted was leaving the gastropub, leaving the other to sip a drink, blending in with the humans.

* * *

When Cally had stiffened, Jack and the Doctor had taken immediate notice. She was as still as a statue, back straight, as if expecting to have to move quickly, but was searching the room for something. Her face had gone pale, a mixture of fear and stern determination. When she'd left, it was not the air of someone who had forgotten something, but of someone who had seen her worst nightmare.

The Torchwood team noticed the look that passed between Martha, the Doctor and Jack, though they said nothing. Matthew and the interns didn't notice it, too busy telling the team a story about their work in the archives.

* * *

Cally followed the Jaffa from a distance. She didn't have to do it, but it felt more natural to do so. For the first time, she was glad the device was working. He wandered down a set of back streets and alleys until the surroundings became every familiar to her. Cally's heart began to pound when she followed him into the Museum. She began to worry frantically when, instead of going into one of the exhibit areas, the Jaffa walked into the staff area. He had a staff pass.

Cally's heart plummeted with dismay. He had a pass, which meant that someone in the museum was definitely involved with a Goa'uld. Worse still, was that he walked, not into an office or an inventory area, but wandered right into the box room and was looking carefully at the naquadah bomb that lay there. It was unguarded. He could probably have taken it, if it wasn't that someone from the museum would notice him carrying it.

She watched him examine the box from afar, and become extremely smug with satisfaction. She wished that she could do something, but there was nothing she could do, other than touch the box until someone told her to leave it alone, or push the Jaffa from the room. That wouldn't work anyway; he was so much bigger than her.

Cally stood stock still, trying to breathe calmly, as another Jaffa walked into the room, and marched up to the first.

/You see? Right where he said it would be. /

/Yes! My Lord will be pleased. Is it fully functional? /

/We will not know that until we open it. /

Cally's heart almost stopped beating. They were going to open the box now? But they couldn't! Not in the middle of the working day! In broad daylight! She didn't even have a weapon she could use to stop them with!

/We have orders to wait until tomorrow night. /

/Why? We could destroy this place now and conquer the Tau'ri city! / The more hotheaded of the two said.

Cally felt like she was having heart palpitations.

/Idiot! You would dare to question the logic of - /

/No! I did not mean that! I merely was saying what we could do with it./

The first Jaffa, the more cautious one, looked suspiciously at the second before condescending and leaving. The other followed after a glance at the bomb.

One thought was screaming at the forefront of Cally's mind. She had to dismantle the thing _now_. She hadn't thought that there were Jaffa in London, let alone on Earth, and this unsettled her greatly. It meant that whatever Goa'uld was after the box could take it by force, and could do more damage even without the box. She had to do something, no matter how little the effect it would have. Cally knew she could not stop an invasion, but she could stop an explosion. Forcing herself to walk slowly and naturally, Cally walked to Myles' storeroom and grabbed the bag that contained her equipment, and then walked quickly back.

In the ten minutes it had taken her to get there and back, somehow, suddenly there were now workmen in overalls standing around the bomb, even leaning on the table it was being housed on. They were holding tools a glass case and what she recognized as a locking mechanism. Cally, hiding her complete horror and frustration, nearly kicked herself. What were these people doing here? Had Myles mentioned anything about workmen?

They were so _close_ to the box. Too close, though they made no move to touch it. A quick scan with her eyes showed that none had medallions on their foreheads, that she could see. It was the uncertainty that worried her. For all she knew, the Goa'uld had conscripted humans too. Paranoia was taking hold.

One of the workmen looked at her. "You in charge of this thing?"

She could order them out, but then they would ask questions about why.

"In charge of – no, I'm Myles Carter's intern." She said slowly. "What are you-?"

"Museum director's orders miss, the box has to be under security measures until it is examined tomorrow. The key." He waved the key to the device being attached to the case that now enveloped the box. "Needs to go to the man in charge, and since you seem to know where you're going, do you know who might that be?"

This seemed infuriatingly legitimate. How did these things happen just at the most inopportune moments?

Cally's heart was sinking, she felt like she was too late, but she quickly seized on this chance. "I can give the key to him, Doctor Carter. He's in charge of this project."

The workman looked at her doubtfully, then handed her the key. "We should be done within the hour love. Don't let anyone but him have it."

Cally clutched the key in her fist, tight enough that it was making an impression. "Don't worry; no one is going to touch that box." _No one_. Hope was coming back a little.

He laughed good-naturedly. "That's what we're here for! Now then, if you'd kindly leave us to our work?"

* * *

Cally left, dazed, to the sound of drilling, the key biting into her palm. She hoped that no one would ask for the key soon. The tools in her rucksack seemed to weigh heavily on her back. She'd get a chance in an hour, hopefully, no one would check.

They would though, so she had to do it before Myles left for the night. She had to be left completely alone with the box, without raising suspicions. She only had one shot, now that she knew for sure that Goa'uld were lurking around. Cally headed for the library in search of books on Egyptian mythology. She had to know who she was facing.

If she didn't get a chance, and she hoped to any real deity that was listening that she did, then the more she knew, the better her chances. Not just for her survival, but for everyone else's survival as well. The design on the Jaffa's forehead was firmly etched into her mind.

Unfortunately, in her panic, Cally had forgotten about the archeological team from Cardiff, and the fact that they would probably be lurking about until the box had been opened. She'd forgotten for the moment the suspicions of the Doctor and Martha as well.

All that mattered was disarming that bomb before the Goa'uld got a chance to use it. Before tomorrow night.

End Episode 13:

Before the Storm Part 2

* * *

You know what to do! Review!

Pandora of Ithilien: I've only been to Britain a couple of times, but the car breaking down thing really did happen, luckily, I wasn't the one driving! Cally can try to disarm the thing, but whether or not she can actually succeed is a completely different question. Like you said, they probably have special teams for that sort of thing, and Cally generally likes to be miles away from them while they do it. Too bad she really doesn't have a choice here.

Njam: Thank you! : )


	14. Before the Storm: Part 3

Miss Me Yet

Hi! I really do apologize for the late update, but I have a really, really good reason, and you're all probably going to laugh at me for it. Besides, even Cally must be laughing in revenge.

You see, three weeks ago, I started a new job. Guess what I'm doing? I'm filing. Everyday.

Can you see why Cally is laughing at me? It's payback - filing style.

So between the filing and cleaning out my room so that I can get the new furniture moved in, I have been very, very lax. Mea culpa!

Disclaimer: I own my new furniture. Not anything Doctor Who, Torchwood, Stargate Atlantis/ SG-1 related. Nor do I own Apple's iPhone. Or kitten heels.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Before the Storm Part III

Episode 14: Dancing Illegally in Plastic Bubbles

The company came back from lunch and found Cally looking dejectedly at a cup of tea in the Great Court while toying with a computer printout, clutching a key in one hand.

"Cally?" Matthew walked up. "Is everything ok?"

He had to ask a second time before Cally said, "Hmm? Oh! Yeah, everything is ok. Sorry, I was a little absorbed…don't mind me."

"I noticed. What do you have there?" Martha, the Doctor and Jack inched closer. The computer printout was the picture of a cartouche; they were meant to depict the name of a royal personage, or a deity. Cally's cartouche was one that the Doctor and Martha could read almost immediately, thanks to the TARDIS.

It read simply 'Menthu', and with no embellishments on the cartouche to denote honor or royalty, even in the copied form it seemed to ooze something not-quite-right.

"Something I found in the library, it looked like a symbol on the box." Cally said as dismissively as she could manage. The fiddled with the key in her hand, and then began to look even more dejected. "I was going to go see Myles with it, but he's not in his office."

"What's the key for?" Martha asked.

Cally smiled in embarrassment. "Um, that's why I ran out on you guys at lunch, sorry about that. There were some workmen coming to put a security box around the uh – box. I was supposed to show them where the box was and what precautions to take, and get the key to the security measures from them." She lied through her teeth, a distant part of her mind noting she was getting startlingly good at it. "I figured you would all be done by the time I got back and so I decided to wait for you here."

Jack crossed his arms. It sounded plausible, and was maybe even true, but there was something about her explanation, how she was acting that grated against his instinct. There was something wrong going on here, and she was trying to hide it, but she didn't appear to be part of it, he believed. She seemed worried, and under that, Cally seemed almost scared, and the manner in which she was lying made it seem that it wasn't self-serving either.

Though she wouldn't tell him – or any of them most likely, from the description of her interactions with Myles, she seemed to want to, as if to lift something off of her shoulders. A weight that wasn't normally hers to bear.

"So what now?" Jack asked instead.

Cally blinked again, having lost track of the conversation and then smiled. "Normally, loiter around the Egyptian exhibits, but I'm really kind of at a loose end right now. It's sort of nice not to do anything though," she joked, and it was only slightly forced.

"You could come help catalogue." Matthew said hopefully, only to be nudged in the ribs by Katie while Cally wrinkled her nose in disagreement. Everyone laughed at the reaction.

"Nice try kiddo." Cally teased. "But I think _your _boss might not like that. Anyway, I really should go and see if Myles is in yet." She stood, but as she did so her eyes focused on something invisible on the far wall.

The Doctor nodded, and Martha spoke up. "Are you ok? Just – you seem a bit unnerved."

Cally grinned, forcing herself to focus for a little longer. These people didn't deserve to get dragged into such a mess. "Yeah, no worries. Just too much caffeine." It was her usual excuse, and a good one, but she knew Martha didn't buy it. The woman was all but a doctor after all. Owen said nothing, only observed her.

"Alright," Martha said, lips thinning. "But if you don't feel well, please tell me." She gave Cally a cheeky half-grin. "You won't even be charged for the honor." That startled a laugh out of Cally.

"Seriously, though, I do need to go," Cally emphasized, tossing her coffee into a nearby bin.

Jack got an idea, and decided to immediately act on it. "We're heading out soon. What are you doing after work?"

Cally raised and eyebrow at the question. "Ah… Nothing?"

Both Martha and the Doctor grinned while Matthew snorted a laugh at Cally's reaction. They knew that Cally had no social life around this place other than to wander the streets of London willy-nilly, though even the Doctor didn't know anything about her singing gig.

"Cally is rather new to the UK." Martha offered as both an explanation and an excuse.

Jack smiled widely, and there was something so devious to it that had Cally wishing she was far away, preferably in another galaxy, hiding under a rock on some god-forsaken planet. She wouldn't even mind a passing Wraith or two. "Good! You're going to come and hang out with us!"

"What! But-" Cally began to protest.

"No excuses!" The Doctor grinned, standing next to Cally and bumping her shoulder with his in friendly jest. "Or we tell Myles you went wandering."

"You wouldn't!" Cally tried to look horrified, but couldn't manage anything more than mildly amused.

"Oh, he would, let me tell you. He's good at blackmail!" Martha pointed out.

There was a beat of silence before Cally asked, straight-faced, "I wonder just how you would know that, and what you were blackmailed with, my dear Martha," she drawled.

The Doctor laughed raucously, his smile wide and eyes full of the same laughter.

Martha instantly turned dark scarlet, protesting her innocence while everyone laughed around her. "Seriously!" she cried once more, and then even she was lost to a case of the giggles. Cally was momentarily stupefied as she tried to think of Martha doing something blackmail worthy. When her brain shorted out in response, she let the concept go.

"Don't think I forgot, Cally," Jack said before Cally could make a clean escape. "Funny you may be, but you got to get up early to catch me asleep." His dashing grin had even Cally ready to melt.

Cally finally shook her head. "Fine, fine, I'll come. When?"

"We'll call!" Martha said, pulling out her phone while also managing to keep it neatly out of the Doctor's reach. The Doctor looked put out, which made Jack chuckle. Ignoring the pair, Martha put her number in Cally's phone, though Cally wasn't sure where she'd managed to filch her phone from. Jack was still looking maddeningly cheerful though.

"Remember to keep tonight open!" Jack called as the entire group left.

Cally sighed and shut her phone off, and without others to distract her, her thoughts returned to the topic that was beginning to dominate her life.

She'd tried to open the box. Tried, and failed.

It hadn't taken Cally long to put the clues together- the thing was practically hallmark of a Goa'ould. The source of her fear however, was how easily this creature had managed to come to Earth- with no one noticed it from the SG-1 or any of it's sister organizations. The Goa'ould's name was Menthu, and according to her reading, it was an Ancient Egyptian god of war, very closely associated with Ra.

Cally's attention returned to the main source of her problems- the mysterious box. The stupid thing had nearly detonated after scanning her – something she'd never even heard of a naquadah bomb being able to do. It had left her so badly shaken that she had still been in that state when they had come back from lunch.

It was now blatantly clear that she couldn't turn it off on her own.

Dealing with a god of war couldn't possibly end well.

Well crap.

* * *

Jack led his team to his hotel, a lush and high end hotel that oozed elegance. When treated to raised eyebrows, Jack shrugged. "I have to spend my 'inheritance' somewhere," he said in a normal tone, and then added in a much lower voice, "I've been around for years. Interest pays, and so does having an idea about stock."

Nearly as one, each member gave a non-committal reply. Jack rolled his eyes as they strolled through the lobby. "Hey Mr. Jack," a small figure in a bell-boy's outfit jogged up. "Can I help you with anything?"

"Haven't I said not to call me mister, or am I on repeat? Jack's fine," the handsome leader said in a mock stern voice. "But no, I'm good. Say hi to your mom for me, okay?" The younger boy nodded rapidly, adoration quickly filling his eyes.

"Whatever you say Jack!"

Gwen sighed as the boy rushed off to attend to other guests. "You're impossible, you know that?"

"Aww, but you can't say that you don't love me," Jack's eyes began to smolder as he leaned closer to her. Will only a slight effort of will, Gwen stepped back and rolled her eyes.

"Stop being ridiculous. And there's only one person you should be giving that look too, and last time I checked I wasn't male."

"We could change that, you know."

Ianto didn't wait for any more comments- as soon as the elevator doors were shut, he had Jack in a searing kiss that had every member of the group looking away, blushing furiously, coughing, or some mixture of the trio. "Cancel that doctor's appointment," Jack told Gwen. That was the cue to safely look at the pair without having the urge to claw out their eyes.

"You didn't exactly see me rushing off to make one to begin with, did you?" Gwen asked.

Owen snorted. "Thank God. Jack, if you snog one more person in front of me, I will not be responsible for my actions." Any further comment was stopped by the elevator doors chiming as they opened, and the Torchwood team plus one Martha Jones and the Doctor were greeted with an obscene show off wealth in the penthouse suite.

"You got this room for yourself?" Tosh gaped at the finery.

"No," Jack retorted. "You must think I'm an idiot. I knew you were following me, and like the fantastic and loving team leader that I am, I sprang for this fabulous room. There are beds for each of you, girls in there, guys in there. Now, this is the part were you all say, 'Thank you Jack. And are unbelievably magnanimous in all shapes, ways and forms.'" He was completely ignored as everyone split into their respective rooms, chatting with one another.

"Come on!" he called into the silence left after they all shut their doors. Left alone with Martha and the Doctor, he said plaintively, "Not even a thank you!"

The Doctor and Martha began to laugh, when Gwen stuck her head out of the door. "I heard that, you smarty prat. Thank you for getting out luggage. Now your thanks will be later, when you have to wait until Martha, Tosh and I are all completely prepared to draw the eye of everyone within a thirty mile radius."

Tosh's head appeared from underneath Gwen's. "We'll be out soon. We're just freshening up. Feel free to join us, Martha." The door snapped shut.

Martha smiled cheerfully. "I could use the time for girl talk." She faced Jack. "Whatever can be said, the Doctor has no concept of the difference between stilettos and kitten heels. It'll be nice to talk to someone who does." With those parting words Martha swept into the girl's room.

The Doctor only managed to look confused. "Last time I checked, kittens were baby cats. Are you sure we've come to the right time period?"

Jack snickered. "Yup. Now, about the finer nuances of woman's shoe-wear…"

The Doctor only had time for a brief prayer to the cosmos before Jack launched into a long-winded explanation.

* * *

Once everyone had vacated the room, the group gathered in the living room. Jack refused to talk to his team about anything important until he'd switched a bug jammer on.

"I take it you have questions." He grinned.

Owen was the first to speak. "Just a few." He looked quizzically at Martha and the Doctor. "I know we barged in on something, but – who are they?" He nodded towards the pair of time travelers.

"Owen!" Gwen exclaimed, nudging him in the ribs. "That's rude!"

Owen did not look in any way repentant, but it did not matter because the Doctor smiled widely and waved.

"Hallo! I'm Doctor – John Smith, I go by the Doctor, and this is my companion-"

"Martha Jones." Martha nodded in greeting.

"Hello." Tosh smiled, trying to be friendly.

Jack was grateful and flashed Tosh a smile. He knew why the Doctor had used his alias – Torchwood's charter did not exactly make them friends of the roving Time Lord.

"Guys," He said to his team. "These are very good friends of mine. Doc, Martha, from the left, these are Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshisko Sato, and Ianto Jones. Toshiko is the only one fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of a nickname, and therefore you may call her Tosh. They are my team at Torchwood."

"Nice to meet you – again." Martha said, while the Doctor just smiled. "Jack's told us about you."

"Oh." Owen said. He had not said anything about these two.

There was a beat of silence. "So, how about some tea?" Ianto volunteered. Hands were raised, and before long the soothing sound of tea cups being placed on the counter, the low sound of running water filled the room. "Who wants what?" Ianto questioned, ever the competent host, never mind that he didn't even live there.

"Anything but Earl Grey," Martha and Tosh said at the same time. The ice thus broken, the group conversed about tea, each throwing in opinions (even Ianto, who called over the steam of the boiling water) until Ianto brought out the tray with tea.

Once settled things took a turn for the serious. The Doctor and Martha began, and told the Torchwood team about Cally and their suspicions.

"So why don't you just arrest her?" Gwen asked, speaking as a former copper.

"Where is the fun in that?" The Doctor complained. "Besides, there's-"

"Something about her." Jack finished, nodding in agreement. "I can't explain it."

"Me either." Martha said. "But there's this feeling…like she's important."

Jack looked at Gwen. "Well, let's start at the beginning. Can you ask Andy to try and run a background check? It's C-A-L-L-Y- E-V-E-R-E-T."

Gwen nodded, and Tosh agreed. "I'll set up my equipment as soon as I can. I've got that new roving console I'd love to try out, and this'll be the perfect test run."

"Good. We need it ASAP."

"Meanwhile, we need to keep tabs on Cally. What are our plans for her for tonight?" The Doctor asked Jack.

Jack shrugged. "I'm not really sure. We should probably grab her as she leaves the museum. As much as I like her, I'm not sure she won't do a runner." He didn't say that the sight of Cally looking so shaky had affected him. He had felt that way himself once or twice.

"I'd really prefer not," the Doctor refuted, deep in thought. "Nothing sends the wrong message like being too involved in her business."

"What if she does a runner?"

The Doctor smiled, and drew a tracker from his pocket. "Insurance."

* * *

Cally locked her apartment door and sagged against it. She wasn't sure what to make of Captain Harkness' offer of a night out. Her first impulse was that she shouldn't go, maybe opt for a decent night's sleep, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to. She was too focused on Menthu, and what all this meant.

Sighing, she took a bottle of beer and as sipped it as she heated up a slice of leftover pizza. Maybe things would look better if she relaxed a little. Twenty minutes later, she found she was no more inclined to go out with anyone than she had when the offer was made. She really wanted to spend some time alone. "Maybe that's the answer." Cally said aloud. She wouldn't put it past Jack to come a-knocking on her door and drag her out by her hair, but if she left soon…

Cally leaped off the couch and sprinted into her room. Her closet contained clothing she'd bought when she realized she'd need a different style when performing. Picking a dress she'd never worn, Cally headed out into the city. If she was going to go out with quite a literal bang, thanks to Menthu's little gift, she might as well have some fun before it.

* * *

So, forty-five minutes later, Cally found that she had wandered into a pub that was fancier than her usual haunts, far more upscale. Not usually someplace she would look to get drunk in, but it had alcohol and people, which was what counted. She'd had a CO who'd been a closet drinker before she'd joined the Stargate Program, and it had ended badly for him. However, the dress she was wearing seemed to accord someplace better. It was noticeable, bright blue, the same color of her eyes, and fell just higher than her knees, loosely hugging what little curves she had, yet somehow managing to make them look appealing. She even had blue heels with them, though she'd never owned a pair like them in her life.

At a small corner table, Cally sipped on orange juice. Drinking alcohol alone was _not_ a good idea, but watching the latest football match on the large screen television behind the counter was still enjoyable despite the lack of alcohol.

"Excuse me?" A Welsh voice interrupted her cheers for the English team. Cally turned to see a brown haired man in a business suit smiling at her. "There seems to be few open seats, and neither of us seems to have a date. Mind if I buy you a drink?"

Cally blinked, and then smiled. This was unexpected – but very welcome. She'd forgotten for the most part about dating, scary as it sounded. On Atlantis, military personnel were strictly not permitted to fraternize amongst each other, resulting in quite a few upset men and women during that their first year when stranded in the other galaxy. Civilians however, were perfectly fair game. For the first time Cally wasn't even thinking about home as she discretely looked him over. "I don't see why not."

A few minutes later, she and the very cute Adrian Sterling were getting better acquainted.

"You're a marine?" He seemed a little amused but pleasantly surprised by this. "I'm an engineer – in robotics."

"Former marine." Cally shrugged slightly, but with a smile.

"What are you doing now?" He asked out of curiosity. She wasn't a woman he would have ever suspected of being in military service. "It's always interesting to meet someone in the military. I have a brother in the navy, you see."

Cally smiled. "I'm working at the British Museum. I have friends in the navy. It's the US Navy though." She told him how she'd become employed at the Museum, making him laugh.

"Loitering! That's brilliant! This Myles sounds like an brilliantly devious man!" Adrian commented, and Cally was quick to agree.

They spoke to one another for a few more minutes, and before the tell-tale feeling of too much water in the system took hold. Coloring faintly, Cally excused herself and went to find the powder room.

She'd only been gone a few minutes, but when she returned, instead of finding Adrian all by himself, she found the Torchwood team, Martha and the Doctor sitting with him, Adrian looking very embarrassed.

"Well – I've only just really met her and-"

Jack whistled when he caught sight of her. "Hell-o!" Those who knew Jack's frequent sexual tendencies rolled their eyes.

Martha laughed and when she walked over to Cally she gave her a once over. "Very nice! I like the pumps."

"Thank you… Not that I'm not pleased to see you all, but….How did you guys find me exactly?" Cally asked, feeling only slightly put-out at her robbed time with Adrian.

The Doctor discreetly hid the tracking device in the pocket of his coat.

"Your landlady told us." Gwen invented.

"Right…that would be my land_lord_ then?" She raised her eyebrows at them.

Adrian attempted to stifle a laugh when the Torchwood team, along with Martha and the Doctor all looked at one another, then laughed with them when they realized that'd been caught. "Alright, we were coming to you your apartment to surprise you, saw you leave and followed you." Martha supplied the better lie. To be fair, they _had_ gone to her apartment, and only then, upon finding her gone, had tracked her here.

Cally still looked skeptical, but sat down with them – making sure to sit next to Adrian.

Jack was still looking her over, and his smile had Cally reddening right down to her toes. "I knew I liked marines for a reason." That made Cally go a true crimson, the complete force of Jack's meaning very evident.

"Ah." The Doctor looked pleased that he wasn't usually the only one with that reaction.

"I think I'm starting to like them as well." Adrian grinned at her.

Cally blushed further. "Sooo unused to this."

"Unused to what?" Adrian asked, puzzled.

"The attention." Cally said sheepishly. "The anti-frat regs usually don't let us – marines – get to this level of flirting."

"Yeah." Jack said dreamily. "One reason I hated the service."

"Didn't stop you!" The Doctor reminded him.

"Well." Jack shrugged and grinned. "Either you got it or you don't!"

Napkins were liberally thrown at him from all sides.

"So…you haven't dated in…" Adrian began to ask her, wondering how good his chances were.

"Almost two years?" Cally grinned at him- guessing exactly what he wanted to know.

Jack, who'd been taking a sip from his glass started to cough and splutter. "What?" Owen looked like he shared the sentiment.

Cally tried to hide her amusement, but only succeeded in hiding her smile behind her orange juice glass. "I was busy!"

"Doing _what_?" Owen asked.

Cally blinked. Most people didn't have her reasons she just realized. "Getting shot at?"

"Oh."

The Doctor grinned. He definitely liked this woman. "So Miss Everet, do you like to run at all?"

Cally blinked. "You mean as in exercise, running around fixing things, or running from people who want to kill me?"

The Doctor's grin grew wider, and Martha grinned as well. Jack watched the interaction with a smirk and a little bit of interest. Running was the Doctor's thing. Cally, however, didn't know that. So she was a little confused as to why he was asking. "Um…a little bit of all three. Why?"

He grinned cutely at her. "No reason."

Cally raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Uh huh."

"Jog any?" Adrian asked, looking hopeful.

"In the morning, a couple of times a week." She smiled at him, coyly, clearly smitten to Jack's critical eye. "I go again on Friday, if you want to with me."

He smiled back. "I'd love to."

Once they'd exchanged numbers – Cally quite forgetting the reason she'd come to the bar – Adrian swooped back to his table and Cally was able to turn her full attention back to her trailers.

"So, now that you've found me, what did you want to do?" She asked. "I'm a little rusty at the whole relaxing thing. I have to admit though -" She looked at Martha, Tosh and Gwen. "I _need_ to have a talk about girl things, specifically, those shoes. Military bases are _not _the best places to have one of those."

Martha grinned. "You're on!" She glanced at the Doctor. "I know how hard it is to get one of those."

Jack grinned and looked at his family. "Well, we decided on having the First Annual Torchwood Pubathon, but we might branch out."

Cally smiled. "I'm up for that."

Jack smiled. "Good! I get dancing first dibs!" He slid out of his seat, whipped Cally out of hers, and carted her towards the dance floor. Cally was stunned for a moment before letting out a "you never said anything about dancing!"

* * *

After the surprise round of dancing, Cally and Jack had gone back to the table, Jack now trying to cajole Ianto into a dance while Cally joined the ongoing conversation.

Tosh was amazed. She'd been talking about theoretical wormhole physics, expecting to have to explain it to everyone at the table. The only two people interested in the subject were the Doctor –who acted as if they were not even to be considered – and Cally. Cally was actually following the conversation – and sounding like she understood about as much of the theories as Tosh did.

Cally's real thoughts were along the lines of – "I wonder what would happen if I took Tosh through the Stargate, or told her I'd actually been through one. Or knew more about them then most scientists." Instead what came out of her mouth was. "But wouldn't the power requirements of generating a wormhole, let alone sustaining it, be enormous?"

Tosh smiled, as did Jack and Gwen, the sight of shy, socially uneasy Tosh finally on her own footing.

"Oh absolutely! Even the scientists at CERN have only been trying to create black holes – little ones- and their energy usages have been enormous!"

Cally nodded. "And where would you make a wormhole go anyway? I mean what starts one place has to go somewhere, unless it's in a time loop, in which the starting point is the same place."

They blinked.

"How do you know that?" The Doctor asked, curiously. He hadn't expected something like this out of her mouth.

Cally blinked, realizing that she'd just revealed something. She smiled sheepishly. "Too many science fiction novels?"

That got a snort of laughter from Owen, whose drink nearly went up his nose. "That's a new one!"

Cally grinned back. "Seriously! I used to read a ton of them when I was a kid! Some things just stuck – and were kind of useful later. Like MacGyver reruns."

"Oh really?" Ianto grinned, and then pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, one that he used frequently around the Hub. "Have a favorite episode?"

They traded stories – and favorite episodes of shows - until they were told to leave the bar for being too noisy. Which was a feat, in a bar at least.

Once outside, Cally found herself sequestered between Jack and Martha, while the Doctor led the way, wandering aimlessly down the streets like he did the stars.

"Where do we go from here?" Martha asked, looking at the midnight sky.

"We could go to the London Eye." Tosh suggested, and they all turned to her in askance. She nudged Owen in the ribs when he rolled his eyes. "What! I've never been!"

Jack was fully prepared to indulge Tosh. "Then we'll go!" He turned to the Doctor. "We'll follow you!"

"I love the London Eye!" The Doctor mused as he began to walk down the semi-quiet streets again. "Except for the Autons…" He muttered.

* * *

They got lost. Twice. In half an hour.

Martha finally got a passing truck driver to give them directions, despite the Doctor's plea that he knew exactly where they were going, but had taken a few interesting side-streets.

Cally and Owen looked at each other skeptically, smirked, and then subsequently hid the smirks from Jack and the Doctor by spontaneously talking about injuries Cally had sustained in combat. Gwen wasn't fooled.

Finally, around one am, the London Eye loomed above the little party, illuminated by bluish lights that made the giant wheel seem like a bizarre, spidery structure.

Tosh was gazing up at it in wonder. Jack however, had other plans. He turned to the Doctor, and to the amusement of Cally, Martha and the rest of Torchwood, he began to pester the other man.

"Doctor, want to do me a favor?"

"It depends what it is…" The Doctor said warily. You never knew with Jack.

Jack grinned in spite of himself. "I'd like to take everyone for a little ride…and since the Eye is closed, we could use some sonic assistance?" He looked pleading.

The Torchwood team plus Cally looked at one another. Sonic assistance?

"No."

"Please!"

"Absolutely not!" The Doctor moved away from Jack, knowing that the other man would try to snatch the screwdriver – after a little groping.

"Aw, come on, just one little ride?" The onlookers in the group hand begun to move their heads like they were at a Wimbledon match.

"No!"

"But you break and enter all the time!" That implication made everyone but Martha look at the Doctor, startled.

That gave the Doctor pause. "Yes, well…It's normally for a good cause!" He looked over at Tosh, who was still looking awed at the structure, and at Martha who looked just as pleading as Jack. "Fine, but just this once!"

Martha whooped and threw a punch in the air, while Cally and the Torchwood team watched as the Doctor crossed to the security barrier, and seemingly slipped it open.

* * *

The cars on the London Eye reminded Cally slightly of Puddlejumpers, only slightly because Puddlejumpers were not oval shaped, clear, and plastic. And Puddlejumpers didn't move at a snail's pace.

Tosh and Cally were side by side, hands pressed up against the glass, looking out at the lights that were the city of London.

"There's nothing special about this!" Owen was muttering.

"Of course there is!" Cally replied, not taking her eyes away from the view in front of her. "We're on a giant Ferris wheel, between the sky and the ground! It's beautiful!"

"It is that." The Doctor said with pride, looking out at the city as well, Martha standing next to him.

"Now if only this thing would accelerate to a decent speed and grow wings, then we'd see something!" Cally prodded the plastic window wistfully, making Jack laugh.

"Sure, but you can't dance inside a bomber!" He was grinning, something Doctor suddenly found to be a very, very bad thing. The former Time Agent pulled out an iPhone and pressed the music feature.

The sound of Jack's favorite 1940's bands filled the compartment and Jack turned to Ianto.

"May I have this dance?"

They watched the two men waltz, until Martha grabbed the Doctor and, to his surprise, joined the pair in the middle of the bubble.

They all ended up dancing with each other at some point, pairing off by need of partners, so Cally got to dance at least twice with Jack, and the Doctor.

Cally found herself having the best night she'd ever had in London, dancing close to the stars.

* * *

End Episode 14

Before the Storm Part III

Reviews are the quarters in the gumball machine of happiness.

Pandora of Ithilien: We could, but then Sam would ask how they knew to call her, and then she'd just forget because Cally is under the "forgetting device". And I wanted to play around with her being solo.

Lindsey: Sorry for the delay! : )


	15. Night of Storms: Part I

I'm late! I'm late! I know, believe me! I very truely apologize! This chapter went through a process of writer's block, and I've never written an action scene before, so I apologize beforehand if it sucks most terribly. I tried to work the kinks out, and (I think?) I've managed it. Once again, I apologize!

Disclaimer: I own...the bed I hope to sleep in sometime this week! Nothing else! Well, maybe my dreams. Nothing alien related, sadly.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 15: Night of Storms – Part I

Cally made a muffled, contented noise and snuggled deeper into the squishiness of her pillow. It was a gorgeous pillow, cuddly and deliciously soft. More to the point, it was beautifully designed put her to sleep.

In her half sleepy state of mind, Cally nuzzled into the pillow, trying not to wake up, curling into the covers and reveling in their comfortable warmth. She couldn't even remember coming _home_. She happily remembered dancing slowly under the stars on a giant Ferris wheel.

She smiled, still quite sleepy, but approaching wakefulness. That had been fun. She eventually gathered the presence of mind to open her eyes. Someone had tucked her in, and when she pulled back her covers Cally saw she was still wearing the blue dress from the night before. It was mussed from her tossing and turning, but still ridiculously comfortable.

Cally reluctantly rolled out of bed, showered, and stumbled towards her coffee machine. On it was pinned a note in Gwen's scrawl: Morning sleepy head! We'll see you at the Museum, alright? – Gwen.

Cally nearly dropped her mug. She'd forgotten all about today, which meant that the night out had worked at least.

It was meet your favorite evil villain day.

She called Myles, saying that she'd be late. There were preparations to be made. Starting with duffle bags, and a few choice items from her hidden safe.

* * *

The Museum was only beginning to stir to wakefulness as well when Cally placed her dangerous burdens in her – very much sealed – locker within the Museum cloakroom.

Pensively, before she'd left her flat, she'd penned her will. It wouldn't be entirely legal, because she didn't have anyone to witness the documents – but she'd made one before she'd left for Atlantis when the Expedition had first started.

Matthew found her an hour later back in the storeroom, making an effort to shift some of the pile of papers before she faced Menthu. So at least Myles could say she'd been a good intern.

In between piles, she'd also been penning a rough explanation - in the style of a military report - of the events that had begun that late July day in the city of Atlantis. She'd written 'Care of General Hank Landry Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA 80901' on the envelope. Whoever found her report might read it, but if she failed in stopping the Goa'uld, it wouldn't matter for her by the time they did.

If she – by some actual miracle – managed to stop a probably high ranking Goa'uld from destroying the city, if that was his or her plan, then no one would have to read it. She'd destroy it.

Matthew knocked on the door jam. "Cally?"

"Morning Matt! What can I do for you this early in the morning?" She was doing her best to be cheerful.

"It's nearly eleven."

"So?"

Matthew rolled his eyes, used to Cally's brand of humor after almost two months. "Myles talked to Ian first thing, and they're opening the box three hours after the museum closes tonight."

Cally blinked, surprised. "That's weird. So why late?"

Matthew shrugged, indicating he didn't know the first thing about what went on in the minds of Museum curators. "And Ian's having the box moved to the circular workroom, you know the one?"

Cally nodded in affirmation. "The one with all of the massive worktables, yeah. More room for others in there." She grinned. "Meaning more press coverage if it turns out to be something big."

Matthew grinned as well. "Something like that." He frowned. "There were workmen doing some repair work in the connecting hallway. Don't know why." The frown deepened slightly. "Thing is, Ian wants his interns, myself included, to come in early and help set up. Myles might ask you the same, so I'm warning you beforehand."

"Thanks." She yawned. "I'll let you know if I have to, and meet up with you guys, if you and Ms. Katie don't mind?"

"Sure." Matthew smiled, and went about his duties. "We'll call you!"

Cally echoed Matt's frown when he'd gone. The size of the room meant nothing to her, though the workmen might be something important. However, the good thing about the later time meant that she knew when she'd have to act. Cally sighed. If she had to stay with the interns that meant that she'd have to make an excuse to leave and get to her duffle bags. If not, she could hide in the museum and wait.

Cally wished she had an SG-team with her. Or an entire platoon.

Life wasn't fair.

If Cally had known who Torchwood, the Doctor and Martha really were, she would have known that her chances were far better than she'd dreamed.

* * *

The Doctor – for after all, sleep was generally trivial- had spent the night thinking, about where Cally would have gotten naquadah in her veins. Cally had the material inside her, which meant that she'd had to have – at least once – come in contact with some sort of device that would have injected naquadah –either on purpose or otherwise – into her. The only image he'd been able to come up with out of his memory was a giant blue ring, spinning, and water pooling in the middle, though the ring was upright. He couldn't for the lives of his remember what it was.

He now definitely wanted to know about what she had done in the American Air Force.

Tosh had been very impressed with the level of security the USAF had put around Cally's file and around many of the files in the location where Cally was supposed to have worked – Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, USA – and the security around the other men and women working there. There were many more personnel listed as working there – many more than the base could hold.

Torchwood and the Doctor smelled a cover up. The crux was that the Cally's file looked strictly legit, and that her file listed her as on un-active duty due to an accident, though any details about the accident was seriously lacking.

Something Cally had made sure of.

* * *

When the team and the two time travelers finally showed up at the Museum, they found it bustling with the usual visitors.

"Where is Cally this time of the afternoon?" Jack asked Martha.

"In Myles' storeroom." Martha replied. "Or trying to find lunch."

"She's writing something in Myles's storeroom." Katie's voice said from behind them, so they turned around. She shrugged. "Matt told me. You should find her there until one."

They walked to the storeroom and, as they approached the flow of people increased, as did the flow of people and burley workmen.

They had expected to find Cally busy at work, but she was licking closed a letter, which she hurriedly hid when she saw them in the doorway.

"Hi guys." She smiled, but even Tosh and Ianto could tell that it was slightly strained.

Jack chose to ignore it for the moment. "You look better after your dancing."

The strained smile turned into a happy one. "Yes! Thank you so much!"

Her response made Jack smile too. "You're very welcome."

"What is all this?" Ianto asked, glancing around the storeroom.

"Myles' papers." Cally said with a grimace. "I think I might have to ask him to get me that wheelbarrow he promised."

The Doctor grinned. "Shall I tell him to make it pink?"

Martha had to put her hand over her mouth to try and stop the giggling. Jack looked adorably confused, as did the rest of Torchwood.

"What?"

Cally was glaring at Martha and the Doctor. "Not one word from you two. Myles still won't give me the negatives."

Martha started laughing harder, which made the Doctor grin. Jack still looked confused.

"Not one word." Cally still threatened. "In any case." She tried to get them off the topic. "Do you want to know when we're opening the box, or do you want to miss it?"

Gwen giggled, and then regained her composure when the Torchwood team glared at her.

"When do we pry the thing open?" Owen asked dryly.

Cally grinned. "We're opening it at eight thirty, but knowing Myles, we'll open it at nine."

"Knowing Myles?" The Doctor asked, eyebrows raised.

Cally shrugged. "Myles gets flustered and excited. And after he does that, he's late!"

Jack's mouth curled. He wasn't sure if Cally was lying again, or if she was telling the truth. She very well could be telling the truth, Myles was a little scatterbrained. The storeroom was evidence of that.

"So," Martha picked up a small stack of thesis, "What can we do to help?"

Cally grinned evilly, in a way that reminded Jack suspiciously of a pair of crooks he'd met in World War One.

"Well, I don't know…" Cally said ominously, but the smile was still there. "Unless you feel like filing."

"Were you about to get lunch?" Ianto hinted, trying to get out of it.

Cally pouted for a moment. "Yes, yes. Fine, if you babysit the storeroom, I'll go grab something. Deal?"

"Throw in some Jellybabies and you're on." The Doctor grinned.

Cally smiled right back. "You're on."

"Honestly!" Martha groaned as Cally went out the door. "Sugar freaks!"

* * *

The moment Cally was down the corridor, Jack flitted over to the pile where Cally had been sitting and started to rifle through it to find whatever Cally had been writing, not knowing that it could have answered nearly everything, but couldn't find it.

Cally was keeping it close to her – in the inner pocket of her Lost Explorers jacket.

* * *

Eight fifteen pm, London time, Cally looked around warily as she entered the locker room. She had not heard from Matthew so she felt that it was safe to attend to the matter at hand.

Locking the door behind her, Cally opened her locker and extracted her duffle bags. The SGC and the Atlantis expedition might be a little – well, more than a little upset if they ever found out exactly how much equipment she'd actually pilfered. More from the SGC than from Atlantis, because while she'd worked at the SGC for four years, they could requisition new things far quicker then Atlantis could.

Her Atlantis off world uniform was the first to come out of the bags, along with the protective vest and the leg strap for her gun. Cally's long black hair went into a pony tail, so that if things got messy than it would not interfere with her eyesight.

Her black backpack was filled with assorted odds and ends. The instructions – different than the ones she'd tried earlier – to disarming the naquadah bomb. A few grenades – some of the Goa'uld stun kind and a few of the normal kind that she hoped she wouldn't have to use anywhere in the Museum. She had spare ammo, which she'd also lined her pockets with. On one hip she nestled a zat, and on the other one of the very cool looking Genii weapons she'd never before had a chance to use. She placed a handgun on her side as well. Cally would have liked to bring a P-90, but she hadn't been able to steal one.

Her combat boots laced up, dog tags on; Cally pulled the final two pieces of equipment out of her largest duffle.

They were Jaffa staff weapons. She had a Wraith stunner back in her apartment, but paralyzing the enemy was not what she wanted to do tonight. When she'd worked at the SGC, one of the Jaffa that sprinkled the SG teams had shown her how to make holsters for the devices. One was thrown across her back, and the other she held in her hands.

By the time she was fully ready, Cally found that it was almost eight, which meant that Myles, the Doctor, Martha and the Torchwood team would be back in the building, having left when the Museum closed, to meet Myles. She hoped that she would not meet them on her way there.

* * *

Myles was late, just as Cally said he would be. Only it was nearly nine, and he was nervously pacing the Great Court when Torchwood and the time travelers entered.

"Myles!" the Doctor called as they got close. "Everything ready and set?"

Myles walked quickly over. "Not exactly." He said tersely. "The box is alright. Unfortunately, I cannot locate Cally!"

"Cally's missing?" Jack asked, suddenly concerned.

Myles nodded. "I know she wouldn't go wandering. Not tonight!"

Gwen nodded, but there was concern on her face as well. Martha looked troubled as well. Cally wouldn't have done a runner, not after what how happy she'd sounded that morning.

The Doctor's eyes masked what he was thinking. "Why don't we go down and open the box anyway?"

Myles still looked troubled, but he agreed, curiosity outweighing concern. Not entirely, but there was the hope that Cally had shown up down there while he was waiting up in the Great Court.

Myles led them down to the new room, no one saying very much out of concern for Cally, and in anticipation of finally opening the box.

The hallway leading down to the room was dim, less bright than it was in the Great Court, and it gave the building a more antiquated look than it normally had, as if it had been airbrushed by sand. Columns, looking more hulking in the dim light than they would during the day, loomed around them. They were so concealing that no one noticed the familiar, armament burdened figure crouching behind a column.

* * *

Cally had almost been to the door of the workroom, having run as quietly as she could through the Museum exhibits and corridors. There was a mysterious – and disturbing – lack of security guards around the Museum.

She'd been approaching the door when she'd heard the myriad of footsteps loping down the corridor; she'd known that she had to hide. The column where she now took refuge and watched her friends enter the room had been the first place available. As she watched them, her heart sank. Cally had been hoping that she could get there before them and cause enough harm to the door lock so that they wouldn't be able to get in. That plan was blown to pieces.

She heard Myles open the door with his key, saying: "My colleague had the box moved in here; it's just down the stairs."

They went in, and closed the door behind them. Cally waited for a little while, then opened the door and followed them. There were two columns, shrouded in darkness, at the head of the staircase, and Cally could see the group at the bottom, and hear them just as well, so she stayed put.

* * *

Myles looked around the room with a heavy heart. Neither Cally, or Ian or the other interns were in sight. Exasperated, and more than a little worried, he turned to the equally worried conspirators who lingered near the box. Tosh, who had not been close to it before, was fascinated by the script.

"This looks so…amazing! It really does look like ancient Egyptian!" She said, tracing different symbols in the air above the box.

Myles nodded. "I don't know if we should wait… No one else is here…" The worry and anxiety was very evident in his voice.

Jack shrugged and looked at the Doctor, who nodded. "I don't see why we don't open it now."

* * *

Cally's eyes went wide at Jack's remark. They couldn't open it now! At worst, they'd set it off. At best, they'd open it as Menthu showed up, probably with a slew of very dedicated Jaffa. She had to stop them, and there was only one way she knew how.

Myles looked reluctant, but took out the key that held the security box over the Egyptian one in place and his face brightened. He had been looking forward to this moment, Cally or no Cally, ever since the box's picture had crossed his desk.

He, watched by the others opened the security lid and thought he heard movement from by the stairs, but Jack had shifted his weight at that moment, so Myles dismissed it. The lid was a bit heavy, because of all of the Plexiglas, but he managed to get it over the box with Ianto's help.

Myles smiled as he reached for the lid, enjoying seeing a small part history in the making when –

"No! Myles! Don't touch it!" A voice screamed.

* * *

Cally had begun to move the moment Myles had reached for the security lid, and was running down the stairs when she saw Myles reaching for the box itself. Instinct took over, and the next thing she knew, Cally was pointing the staff weapon at her archaeologist friend and screaming.

"No! Myles! Don't touch it!"

Everyone whipped around, Myles' hand an inch from the cover of the naquadah bomb.

"Cally?" Jack asked incredulously. One look at Cally's face stopped him from saying anything more. More to the point, Cally was holding some sort of – well – it had to be a weapon. But in her face he saw fear, cold, unbridled fear.

"Myles step away from that!"

It hadn't clicked for Myles yet. "What are you doing?" Then it dawned on him. "Cally, why is there a gun on your belt?"

Cally gulped, not wanting to do this. "Myles, I will explain absolutely everything but I _need you to step away from that._"

* * *

Sweat trickled down the back of Cally's next as she gulped. This was worse than nearly getting fed on. Jack had put a hand to his waist, obviously where he had a gun concealed, but to deter them she opened the nozzle end of the staff weapon. It fizzed with electricity, making Jack's eyes grow wide.

The Doctor was fiddling with something in his hands, but she couldn't see what it was, because Myles had moved in front of him, and away from the naquadah bomb.

* * *

Myles wasn't sure what to feel. Suddenly Cally was there, brandishing weapons and demanding he step away from the artifact that they'd been waiting for. There was only one explanation he could think of.

"Cally." He said softly. "If you're here to steal the box and its contents, I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that."

To his, and the others surprise, Cally gave a short, terse laugh. "Myles!" She sounded almost grateful through the strain in her voice. "I'm not here to steal the box! I would never do that!"

Martha looked from the box and back to Cally, wariness in her eyes. "Then-" She stepped over to the box and Cally yelled in alarm.

"Don't!"

* * *

Cally felt like she was losing control of the situation. She looked pleadingly at Myles. "Myles, I know you don't know what's going on, but if you touch the box – Myles-"

"Can you read the writing?" The Doctor asked suddenly.

Cally nodded hesitantly. "Yes."

Myles' eyes went wide. "Then what-"

"Cally, what's in the box?" Jack asked pointedly. Cally was a marine to her bones, knowing that if her instincts or Intel said something was dangerous, it probably was, no questions asked. At the same time, something nagged at him to question what was before him.

Tosh looked a bit less convinced. They'd only known her for two days, and she was a cop, she knew that stories could be doubted, but she looked at Jack, and, like the rest of the team, his judgment was generally enough.

Cally took a chance. "The outside of the box isn't in Egyptian; it's in a language called Goa'uld. It reads 'A gift from lord Menthu in tribute, in congratulations of the conquest of the Anagemati system." She gulped. "Except it's not a congratulatory gift, that's not what it is at all."

"It's a bomb." Cally said. They all looked at her, unsure of what to believe.

"Look, I know you probably won't believe me, but I can tell you that if you even try to open that thing, it'll blow up."

"How do you know?" Tosh asked.

"It's – it's not the first naquadah bomb I've ever seen." She took in another breath. "And if I don't disarm that thing. I have a reasonable idea that the original owner is coming back for it, and I don't think it's to put it in packing noodles."

The Doctor and Jack looked at each other, and then Jack pulled Myles away from the box.

* * *

Cally could have died in relief when they all moved away from the bomb. She tore down the stairs and at the bottom, handed her staff weapon to a startled Owen.

"What the-" Owen asked, holding the weapon to his face to examine it.

"Whoa!" Cally grabbed the weapon and turned the end of the thing down. "Are you _trying_ to get killed? Point the end of that thing away from you!"

She quickly unclipped her bag and it fell to the floor, and she quickly rummaged around in it.

"What is this?" Owen asked.

"It's a staff weapon." Cally said, as if that explained everything.

"Why are you carrying so much - equipment?" Ianto asked, referring to her weapons.

Cally looked up at him, and the fear was back. "Ianto, I've got all of that because, like I said, if I'm right, the original owner is coming back for it."

"What do you mean by original owner?" The Doctor asked.

"You mentioned Menthu." Myles said softly, and they all looked at him. "Menthu is an Egyptian god of war."

Cally gave a snarky laugh as she pulled papers out of her bag. "Not exactly, but he's probably as completely annoying as the rest of the system lords."

"System lords?" Ianto asked.

"Long story, no time." Cally snapped, standing up and approaching the naquadah bomb carefully, spreading out the papers on the table in front of it. Jack could see that she was sweating.

"You ever disarmed one of these?" He asked.

Cally suddenly looked even more scared. "No." She could sense the silent shock behind her. "I tried earlier-" She looked down at the instructions. "When I ran out on all of you in the restaurant, and instead of disarming it, the bleeding thing nearly went off on me!" Cally's voice rose in panic at the memory, but tried to calm herself down and then tried to concentrate on the papers.

"Could we help?" Martha asked.

"I realize I'm just a marine, and I'm not _generally_ around explosives all the time." Cally said in sarcastic annoyance. "If would help if….Do you read Goa'uld?" Cally asked, perusing over the symbols on the side of the box.

"No…" Martha exchanged looks with the Doctor, who didn't say anything, but went back to looking intently on the box. If he didn't want to reveal that the TARDIS could translate, than she wouldn't either.

"Then no, you can't help, sorry." Cally breathed in slightly, and then pressing symbols as she went, her mouth moving. If they listened softly, they could hear Cally chanting a soft mantra. "Don't blow up! Don't blow up! Don't blow up!"

Then suddenly, Cally brushed a particular symbol, and on the right side of the box, a panel whooshed open. Cally nearly laughed in relief. It was a panel full of control crystals. Her sudden sag of relief was very much noticed by those observing.

"I take it that was good?" Gwen asked.

Cally smiled nervously. "Very, very, very good." She moved over to the crystals. "Control crystals. If I can pull the right ones-"

"You can disarm it." The Doctor said, moving closer to have a look.

Cally nodded. "I hope so. I don't know – I don't know much about control crystals."

Tosh tentatively went over. "What do you know?"

Cally gulped. "I know they're fragile, but that if I do destroy these particular ones, the bomb will blow up anyway. There is supposed to be a single crystal that should deactivate it."

"Know which one?"

"No." Cally shook her head. "But since we're beyond the Goa'uld script stage, anyone have any ideas?"

The Doctor held up the sonic screwdriver. "Do you mind?"

Cally didn't look away from the crystals, but nodded. The Doctor moved the screwdriver over the panel, and Cally looked at it in mute interest. Before the Doctor could speak however, there was a sound, like something activating in the hallway on the other side of the room, making them all whip around.

"What was that?" Ianto asked, moving towards the hallway.

It was Cally's voice that stopped him. "Hide!" She almost yelled, her voice growing in panic.

They looked at her, and her face was pale, almost deathly white. The fear in her face was completely encompassing. She whipped around and pushed the panel closed then snatched up her bag and the staff weapon.

"For goodness sakes _hide_!" She yelled at them. "They'll kill you if they see you!"

Something in her voice galvanized them into action, Jack pulling Myles along with him as they hid behind a few of the worktables. Jack turned to Cally before hiding himself.

"What about you?" Jack asked in concern.

Cally hadn't moved towards the worktables with them, but had moved off to the side, towards one of the pillars, making no attempt to hide herself. She looked at him with the knowledge of what was about to happen. She seemed to be calm now, as if the anticipation of what was coming, something she knew what to face, was what was keeping her from running.

"I'll be fine."

With that, she turned towards the hallway, and the sound of many heavy footsteps coming in their direction.

* * *

Jack didn't know what to feel, what to watch. The sight of Cally – a woman he barely knew - standing and awaiting an enemy he did not know was a little surreal. She was into something deeper than military secrets, and knew a lot more about these – system lords – than she was letting on. If she was right, he'd be seeing one in a few minutes.

She just seemed so hopeless, so resigned to what was about to happen that she hadn't even bothered to take cover. Was she really planning to fight off and enemy by herself?

The footsteps were getting louder, and there were many of them by the sound of it.

What came through the door surprised him more than anything. They had to be soldiers, all men, all bald, but wearing some sort of silvery armor that he'd never seen before. Jack looked over to the Doctor, who had his eyes screwed up, as if he was attempting to remember something.

They all carried weapons similar to the ones that Cally carried the staff type weapons. When they entered the room, they spread out, to create a circle inside the circle of worktables.

Cally didn't move. In fact, she grinned, as if she'd just remembered a particularly funny joke.

"What is she _doing_?" Gwen whispered, looking like she needed to be holding a gun.

As they watched, they noticed something very odd start to happen. As the warriors moved, they didn't look at Cally. They moved around her, as if ignoring her presence.

Cally was not grinning anymore. In fact, she looked almost sick. To their sudden fears, Cally stepped out into the middle of the room. Jack almost stood up to drag her back.

* * *

The moment Cally had heard the sound of rings activating, she knew she'd run out of time. The first thing she'd had to do, she knew, was to get the others to hide. They didn't have the odd – protection – that she had.

Still, the amount Jaffa that entered the room had startled her. She'd realized that Menthu would have had to have a large amount of Jaffa, being a right hand man of Ra's, but it hadn't hit her until then.

A quick look at the faces revealed the reason for the lack of many security guards; at least three of them were Jaffa.

If she was going to be fighting a group of them, then she'd have to try to thin the competition. So Cally stepped into the center of the room. From the corner of her eye Cally caught the movement of something blue, and knew it was that odd coat of Jack's, but he knew enough not to get up and be spotted by the Jaffa.

Cally gulped, and then turned the staff weapon towards the nearest Jaffa, and fired.

It was shamefully like shooting fish in a barrel.

* * *

The crackling light that had exploded out of the staff weapon startled the watching people, more so when it hit the Jaffa, Cally had been aiming at. He fell violently backwards.

The other Jaffa did not move, and appeared not to have noticed their fallen comrade.

This, they thought was perhaps an anomaly, but when Cally took another one down, with the same lack of acknowledgement, they realized something was definitely up.

"When she said she was fine…" Gwen murmured. The Doctor nodded in agreement. Whatever kept Cally from being...noticed… was helping her take care of the odd warriors.

Cally looked a little sick as she was firing, but she kept going. She was used to having Jaffa firing back, but when they weren't, it felt a little bit like she wasn't just protecting herself and those in the room, but doing something wrong. When the last of the Jaffa went down, the same sound – of the rings firing- started coming from the hallway, the same one that had preceded the Jaffa showing up the first time.

Cally looked towards the hallway, and then leapt over a few bodies to her original position.

This time however, the Jaffa did not immediately enter the room, but when they did, there were many, many more of them.

And when they came in the room, they did not form a circle. This time, two columns of them stood at the doors, and faced each other, assuming a respective stance. The others spread themselves out, and looked towards the stairway that Myles had led them all down to get into the room.

"Oh no." Cally whispered. "Not yet!"

* * *

There was no sound of rings, only a soft pair of footsteps coming from the stairwell. They were careful and deliberate, very steady, as if the walker was expecting to find something at the bottom.

The Doctor motioned, calling the rest of the observers to move in such a way that they would not be spotted by whoever was coming down the stairs. The atmosphere had already been intense in the large workroom, but now it weighed down heavily on the watchers, as well as the Jaffa –who knew who was coming. Most of all, it settled on the lone member of an SGA team, who didn't know if she could handle what was coming.

The figure coming down the stairs moved slowly, but gracefully. From what Cally could see, the host was a man, tall, but she could not see his facial features in the gloom. What she could see was that his robes were of a light color, possibly tan, but they were shiny. As he approached the bottom of the stairs, Cally could see that they were more of a delicate pale gold color, at least the outer robes were, the inner robe was of a cerulean blue that offset the white hair nicely. It wasn't until she saw the white hair, that she knew who it was, and paled further.

The man stepped onto the final step down, and then stood on the dais before the floor, into the brighter lighting, and while the robes suddenly gleamed in brilliance, it was the face that was most recognizable.

* * *

"Ian!?" A shocked whisper exploded from Myles' lips. Only the Doctor's firm grip was keeping the archaeologist from running up the man who was being watched fearfully by Cally.

The next moment however, stopped all of Myles's attempts to wrest himself free, because as they watched, Ian's eyes, normally a brilliant blue, glowed yellow, and he smiled. It was not a smile Myles could ever imagine Ian wearing. It was cold, gloating, but with an edge of malice to it, a dash of arrogance, that stalled any belief in that the man standing before them was even Ian at all.

Ian began to speak, but the voice, similarly, was not Ian's. It was low, gravelly, and altogether not quite human.

"Kree my Jaffa." He spoke. "And welcome, to the night of our triumph."

* * *

End Episode 15

Night of Storms Part I

Pandora of Ithilien: grins The Doctor could have an alterior motive for asking! But until he asks, we'll never know! And thank you once again. Our favorite Time Lord does seem to remember something...but after so many regenerations, who knows!

Lindsay: It will be a lot of fun to see Torchwood's reactions! Imagine, Cally's been to another galaxy! And lives on Atlantis! Fainting of shock anyone? I'm sorry I updated late!!

Sayle: You're right, the Doctor has been around so long that he had to have seen a Stargate at least once, and who doesn't know about the story of Atlantis! He probably doesn't know about anyone living there though - yet anyway. He's been around, but sometimes has to dig through memories to remember. And thank you for the complement!


	16. Night of Storms: Part II

I went on a short, but much needed vacation last week! Four days of hiking through two major cities! It was _awesome_!! I really have to do that much more often, and look at all the creativity it produces!

On the other hand, I'm back off to school next week! -Sighs- It never ends does it?

Author Warning: _This chapter contains Jaffa…chunks?_

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my backpack and my solitary box of school supplies.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 16: Night of Storms: Part II

The Jaffa banged their staff weapons on the ground with a sort of rallying cry that echoed through the high architecture. A pair of Jaffa had come into the room with a floating cart and loaded the naquadah bomb onto it. Instead of taking the cart away, they Jaffa took up positions near their comrades.

* * *

As Menthu surveyed his troops, Cally started moving. Unhooking a military grenade from her belt she moved into a position where the explosive device would go where she wanted it to, not encountering any obstructions. Pulling the pin, she let the grenade roll along the floor.

* * *

Gwen spotted the grenade and her eyes went wide. She waved a hand, trying to signal to the rest to get down.

The grenade rolled to the middle of the floor, and into the center of the Jaffa, where, after a heart-wrenching second, it exploded.

The blast was loud and devastating in the enclosed space, taking out a large chunk in the floor, and in the majority of the Jaffa. Splinters and chunks of stone and …. Jaffa… rained down everywhere.

Cally had taken refuge behind her pillar, but still shuddered as the blast hit. Ianto was covering Myles while the Doctor crouched near Gwen and Tosh and Jack with Martha. Menthu flinched as a stone chip grazed Ian's right cheek, leaving a trail of blood, and moved to wipe it away, aware of the injury.

* * *

The Doctor rubbed the debris from his hair, and moved again to watch the proceedings. It was amazing that no one from the Jaffa had seemingly reacted to the blast, even when some of them lie dead or dying. Amazing, yet disturbing. Almost as disturbing at the fact that Menthu/Ian merely stepped over the dead.

He was still smiling. "The world shall tremble at the might of our power, and once more we shall rule this world." The reply cheers were less populous, but Cally doubted if the system lord had even noticed.

He hadn't noticed her either, which was a definite relief. Well, both a relief and a disappointment. With how long she'd been away from Atlantis, Cally would have thought that the device would have worn off by now. The relief came from the fact that Menthu couldn't see her, and thus would make her job easier.

Cally watched Menthu strut around, spouting something about Ra and revenge, and then moved behind a worktable across from him for cover. Raising her staff weapon, she fired rapidly, hitting Jaffa around the border of the now tight circle around Menthu. They went down with grunts of pain, some stumbling back into others, but they fell with heavy thumps. Still, none of the others paid much attention as their comrades fell.

Menthu also had not noticed, but continued speaking, pacing softly to the naquadah bomb and running a hand almost lovingly over the golden façade. "Who would have believed that old gifts would become useful again?" He chuckled with malice at his voice. "I had given this to an old enemy of mine after he conquered one of my territories. Only fortune kept him from opening it. An assassination."

Cally fired two more shots, and then made the mistake of moving into an open space between herself and the powerful Goa'uld, no Jaffa blocking the view of one another.

* * *

Deep in an unused Atlantis storeroom, a small device flickered.

* * *

"And I can _see_ you Taur'i!" Menthu roared and his hand shot out, palm glowing. Cally, caught in surprise, was picked up and thrown against the wall by the force of the hand device. She landed against the marble with a sickening crunch and she screamed in pain before falling on the floor.

Menthu looked around for her, but seemingly could not see her again. "What technology enables you to hide from my Jaffa Taur'i?"

Cally was gasping and clutching her ribs, the pain washing over her in waves, but she crawled over to her staff weapon and tried to get up to a crouch. Trying to keep quiet, though her vision was swimming, Cally moved forward again, making Martha quietly hiss in sympathy, knowing from hospital experience how much pain Cally was obviously in.

She tried to move swiftly across the rubble, feeling the stone chips grate against her skin, trying to ignore the squishy parts intermixed with them. Cally was just grateful that the rest of her grenades had not detonated when she'd been hurled against the wall.

"Taur'i!" Menthu yelled, and though he could not see her, he raised his hand so the device glowed the same color as his eyes when they flashed.

"You answer mine first Menthu!" Cally yelled, though her voice was tight with the pain, and then rolled behind a different worktable just in time. Energy shot out of Menthu's hand device and hit the wall behind where Cally would have been.

Menthu realized that he hadn't caught who ever it was and roared in annoyance. "I do not deal with those who defy me!"

Cally gasped in pain, the roll had put weight on her ribs. "Too bad!" She yelled and rolled again.

Somehow Menthu thought that her voice was coming from a different direction, and whipped around to fire at empty space. Cally had rolled a few times more, and now she was only two tables away from where Jack and Martha crouched.

From where Martha was sitting, she could see Cally was sweating heavily from the pain, but she seemed to be able to ignore it. Only Cally knew that it was from the adrenaline coursing through her veins, and it seemed to make the pain go away, at least temporarily. Martha glanced at Owen, who furrowed his brow and was trying to gauge the distance between himself and Cally, to see if he could make it across.

Jack had come to the same conclusion as Martha that, aside from the situation, Cally was in very big trouble. Menthu was still shooting blasts off, but none of them coming close to reaching Cally's position. Jack inched as close as he could to Cally and tried to whisper to her, but Cally shook her head fervently, warding him off.

"Don't!" She mouthed.

"What's going on!?" Jack mouthed back. Before Cally could answer, Menthu was yelling again.

"Where are you Taur'i?" Menthu yelled. When all he got was silence, he snarled. "Very well! Ask your questions! But I will ask some of my own!"

Jack tried to stop Cally from rolling away, but was forced to hiss in annoyance and she rolled away to a farther position.

"How can you see me?" Cally yelled. "No one can!"

The admission, out of context, startled the watchers, who could plainly see her.

* * *

Jack looked at the Doctor and the rest of those hiding. What on Earth was going on? Cally claiming that she wasn't able to be seen and this... person...thing...was throwing Cally around the room like she was nothing. He was calling her a Taur'i, and even the Doctor was shaking his head, either because he didn't know what it meant, or he did and didn't like what it meant.

* * *

There was a tense period of silence as Menthu slowly turned around in his position in the center of the floor, scanning the room with his eyes, searching for Cally. He'd already found her once, so it stood to reason that he could find her again. Cally and those watching crouched behind their respective worktables, trying to make themselves smaller and hopefully unobtrusive, as if doing to would protect them from being 'sensed' by the Goa'uld.

Menthu cocked his head to the side; his cut from shrapnel was already healing. "I can hear your breathing as well. This is interesting. I myself cannot see or hear you, but my host...through his eyes..."

Cally was amazingly on the move again, and Martha was looking at her in complete concern. "Good to know." Cally said softly. At least that answered one of her questions. Menthu had never taken his new body through the rings.

Host? The watchers looked at one another. Now this was becoming slightly disturbing, well, more than it had been a few minutes ago. It had been disturbing then too.

"It is odd." Menthu mused, meaning for her to hear him. "And yet, it tells me much more about you Taur'i."

Cold fear trickled down Cally's spine. ""How so?" She was going to roll, but she felt a little numb.

"Even with all of the destruction that you have caused, I feel that there should be more."

* * *

Cally almost spluttered at the arrogance of it. Here she was, trying to stop him from destroying the city and he wanted more? What did the snake mean there should be more? She moved back to the position near Jack's observation point. She was breathing heavily.

Martha and the Doctor had switched places, despite some disapproval from Martha. If she got close enough to Cally, she could at least try to assess some of the damage to the other woman's body.

The Doctor and Jack were intently trying to get Cally over to them, motioning for her to come to them, but she refused, shaking her head and turning her attention back to Menthu.

* * *

The Goa'uld laughed. "You are of course, from the SGC! It is the only reason you would know about the weapons you have been using." The Jaffa around him were looking around the room, trying to discern who their master was speaking to, but could not find a source. Because they could not see the bodies around them, they remained figuratively in the dark.

Cally's tell-tale blink told Jack and the Doctor all they needed to know, that Cally was from somewhere, maybe some organization called the SGC, but neither of them recognized the anagram. They looked at the rest of the watchers, who negatively shook their heads.

"What about it?" Cally yelled, making Menthu shoot off a blast two work tables in the wrong direction.

"It is very simple then, and yet very interesting. You have only caused the destruction one person could create." Menthu began, and Cally realized what he was driving at. "An SG team has four people on it."

Jack and the Doctor raised their eyebrows, while everyone's gaze centered on Cally. Whatever an SG team was, Cally was supposed to be part of one. But teams had more than one member…

"Your point snakehead?" Cally was muttered loudly, trying not to sound like it was a sore point.

"I would have assumed that your compatriots would have also been trying to stop me." The same thought had occurred to the watchers. "But another thought occurs to me." Menthu said.

"Oh?" Cally replied. This was bizarre; their exchange was becoming almost conversational.

Menthu's smile became more sinister, and he called out his deduction triumphantly. "You are alone Taur'i!" His next blast was closer to Cally's position.

So much for friendly conversation.

* * *

The watchers saw Cally's face go completely white with fear, and knew that Menthu was irrevocably correct. Cally shuddered in fear, because her enemy knew the truth. The sudden revelation made the watchers realize why she had been so secretive. She was alone, and had no back up. They looked at one another, the Torchwood team and the time travelers, and at once came to a consensus.

Cally gripped her staff weapon tightly in, trying to gather her resolve. She unhooked another military grenade, her last, from her belt. Menthu was now again in the midst of his Jaffa, and the more of them there were, the more danger her - watchers - were in. If she got Menthu in the bargain, then the world was better off. "That doesn't mean that I can't stop you!" Cally yelled and moved.

Gwen saw her attentions and signaled for everyone to duck again, but Cally had already set the grenade rolling. The blast rocked the room again, but when the smoke cleared, Menthu alone was still standing. Cally nearly swore, but remembered the need for silence.

The team's eyes were wide, having never seen anything like it. The Doctor brought his hands from his head as he had been shielding himself, eyes wide, very intrigued. Something was brewing in his mind.

Cally moved again, slowly.

Menthu laughed as the visible shield faded. "Very amusing Taur'i."

"You just lost your Jaffa!" Cally yelled again, shocked at his loss of feeling of the lives of his men. It shouldn't have, she'd seen it before, but it had shocked her then too.

"There are always more." Menthu shrugged, making Cally's as well as the watcher's hearts grow cold. "And when I discover the technology that made it so that not even a Goa'uld can see you without aid, I will no longer need very many."

At the title of Goa'uld, the Doctor's eyes went wide. Memories were flooding back.

Meanwhile, Cally laughed painfully. "You'll have to go a long way to find it! Don't come to me if you can't use it! _I _can't even use the thing!" She gulped from the pain. "What were you planning to do with the naquadah bomb?"

The answer about the device surprised her watchers.

Menthu laughed again. "So many questions but so little answers! Never the less, I shall tell you. It does not matter Taur'i. I shall be triumphant."

"Overconfidence, check." Cally muttered, trying to assess if Menthu was closing on her position.

"Since the fall of Ra, this planet has been on its own footing. The bomb shall change that. Once this city goes, I will do the same to others. But I wanted to use this one first. What irony will it be when city of Londinium is destroyed by one of its own pursuits of knowledge. One less monarch in our way will also be most beneficial." He smiled. "Knowledge, as humanity used it to rebel, shall be it's downfall as well.

"Peachy." Cally said loudly. She didn't have any grenades left, but after what she'd just seen, any grenade, even the stun ones that she had left, would have little effect. It still didn't explain why Menthu had withstood the blast. But she had a theory about that.

Gently Cally put her staff weapon down, making the watchers wonder about her intent. Slowly, Cally drew the hand gun she'd also concealed on her person and rolled three worktables to her left, and then peaked around the edge of it. Menthu was still glancing around for her, but he was closer. Stealing herself, Cally stood up and fired at the system lord.

The bullets never reached their target. A few inches from Menthu's body, the bullets hit a personal force field, making the surface of the suddenly visible field ripple with orange light.

The Torchwood team and Martha stared, having never seen anything like it, though Tosh immediately became distracted as her mind began to think of the possibility of building something like that. The Doctor's gaze had suddenly hardened at the sight.

Cally, having her theory confirmed, really did swear, because it meant that her job had just gotten one hundred percent harder. The swearing had its effect, as had Cally's inopportune revealing of her position. Menthu raised his hand once more and threw Cally back to the wall.

This time, Cally's cry of pain was louder and more abrupt. When she hit the ground this time, Cally nearly blacked out, barely holding onto consciousness. Martha and Owen looked like they were about to make a break for Cally's position. Only Ianto and Gwen's intervention held them in their places. Jack however, had no reservations about helping the young woman.

Swiftly rolling to the next worktable over, one just short of the worktable Cally had been closest to his original position; Jack took cover and fired with his own World War Two era handgun, knowing that he could at least take the thing's attention away from Cally. To give her time.

It had the desired effect. As the projectiles hit the shield, Menthu swung around and tried to hit Jack with a blast from the hand device, which Jack ducked by flattening himself on the floor.

"She isn't alone!" Ianto yelled as he and Gwen pulled out their own weapons. Myles was propped up against the wall where Ianto had left him after the initial grenade blast, watching the proceedings with a dazed expression. He was being looked after by Martha, while Owen was preparing to move towards Cally. The Doctor was watching Cally, but for different reasons, as if he was trying to mentally urge the practically still figure to move.

* * *

Moments later, Cally was moving, albeit slightly.

She had only one reliable weapon left, and it was the only one guaranteed to get through the shield. Using the cover fire that the Torchwood agents were providing her, trying not to bring attention to herself, Cally released her knife from its place and pulled herself up, using the worktable, into a position that would allow her to use it effectively.

* * *

Jack caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, but was too unprepared for what happened next.

* * *

"Menthu!" Cally screamed. The Goa'uld turned toward her, eyes flashing and hand device primed. Ianto and Gwen had run out of ammunition and watched what was about to happen as if through slow motion.

Cally threw the knife.

It wasn't a good throw, but she only needed a decent one. The knife passed through the shield like butter, into the crystal of the hand device, burying itself up to the hilt through it, and into Menthu's – Ian's – hand.

Menthu screamed, like Cally when she'd hit the wall, but it was a roar of anger as well. Swiftly, before anyone could stop her, Cally was within two yards of the man, zat aimed at the man's head, faster than she should have been able to move. She would have taken the shot had Menthu stepped toward her, made any sort of move, but he didn't. Instead he fell to the floor in pain, clutching the hand and trying to pull the knife from it. She was further stopped from shooting him, by the sudden cry.

"Don't!" It was Ian's turn to scream a halt to the proceedings.

* * *

Action in the room froze when Ian had yelled. He was standing next to the Doctor now, who was looking from the archeologist to the injured marine and her intended target, and realized the problem.

"Don't! Cally! That is Ian! I've known him for years!"

"He's not Ian anymore Myles!" Cally rasped. "It's just wearing his face!"

Myles gulped. "I know, and I may not know what is going on, but please! If there is something inside him, making him do these things, then surely we can get it out-"

"Why don't you tell him?" Menthu recaptured Cally's attention. "That nothing of the host survives?"

"That is a lie." Cally said forcefully, bringing the zat to bear on him again. Her hands were trembling from the stress and the strain on her already pain – filled body. "And we both know it!"

Menthu smirked. "Then tell your friend. Poor, innocent Myles. Tell him what happens if you try to take me from my host. It is what he wants to hear!"

There was silence for a moment, where Cally looked angrily at Menthu, not wanting to say it. She gripped the zat tighter, but through the anger, Cally knew she'd never be able to pull the trigger in time if Menthu made a move.

"What happens?" Myles asked, insisting. Cally remained silent. "What happens?" Myles yelled. No one seemed to want to stop him.

"The symbiote releases a deadly toxin." Cally finally choked out. "It kills the host."

"A little revenge." Menthu said smugly. "But nothing compared to what I will do to you!"

Menthu lunged toward Cally, and when the Goa'uld began to move, Cally knew that if he got her now, she would die. The zat fell from her palm, all resistance gone from her body. She just wanted to rest, to lie down. She wasn't even registering the feeling of shock creeping over her, from the pain and the as of yet undiscovered blood loss.

It took a few moments for even Cally to register the sound, but what she first realized was that Menthu was falling to the ground, no longer having any forward momentum. Then the echoed bark of a gunshot registered in her beleaguered mind, and turned to see Jack, who was lowering his gun.

Menthu coughed blood. "Bested by Taur'i who have no knowledge of what I am." He smiled. Cally looked down Ian's torso to see the wound had passed through where Ian's heart was now bleeding out. "The host was intrigued you know, thought it would be good _research_. To study a warrior of Ra." His voice was becoming fainter, and somehow there was pride in it. "But when I took over, he no longer thought so. He knew so much about the Goa'uld and did not know it." He looked Cally in the eyes. "We are both warriors, and you were worthy of sport. But I will still have my revenge, Taur'i Everet." His good hand, still clutching the injured one, pressed a button on one of the ribbons of the hand device before Cally could react. A noise from the naquadah bomb on the cart made Cally's eyes widen.

"No!" She yelled, glancing at the bomb.

"Bid your friends goodbye." Menthu said, and was gone. There was a rasping sound, and then Ian's voice spoke again, though this time without malice.

"I'm sorry." Ian Treblo said, looking at Cally, and then to Myles. "I'm so sorry!"

"Ian!" Myles was crying.

"Doctor Treblo-" Cally shuddered.

"Don't!" Ian said, echoing the cry Myles had used only a minute before. "I am dying as myself, and for that I thank you!" He looked intently at Cally. "Stop the bomb!" With a final rasp, Ian stopped speaking, stopped breathing, and there were tears in his eyes.

There was silence in the room again, broken by the sound of a countdown. The sound jolted Cally out of her reverie and she half scrambled, half staggered to the naquadah bomb, a strangled "no!" tearing from her lips.

The others ran over to her, while Myles knelt in disbelief at his friend's body.

"Can you stop it?" Jack asked Cally tentatively. She looked like she was panicking, sweating and almost ready to faint.

"No!" Cally said in frustration, voice trembling with just the effort of speaking. "I can't, it's just going to explode here and-" There was no pain any more, which was probably why Cally was still able to think. Instead of continuing, she whirled around and surveyed the dead Jaffa. When she found what she was looking for, she ran to the Jaffa's body and pulled a ring activator from the corpse's hand, and then ran back to the naquadah bomb. She thrust the zat in Martha's hands. "Two shots disintegrate!" She told the doctor in training hurriedly, indicating the dead, before taking an envelope out of the inner pocket of her jacket and thrusting it into Jack's startled grasp. "Please deliver this."

Cally grabbed the edge of the floating cart and began to drag it towards the hallway from where the Jaffa had entered. Her ribs protested and she couldn't pull it more than an inch. Within seconds, Owen and the Doctor were helping her, because she could not do it herself.

"What are you doing?" Gwen asked Cally, trying to figure out the marine's strategy.

"Ship." Cally gasped. "Menthu had to have a ship. In orbit. If I can get it to explode somewhere crucial…" She trailed off and they entered the hallway, positioning the cart in the rings on the floor.

"I can do it." Jack offered.

Cally's head shot up from the bomb, where the countdown was nearing the six minute mark. "No!" She yelled in horror, knowing what would happen if he did. She realized that they were all startled by her reaction, and so came up with an excuse. "Do you have any idea how to get around a Goa'uld hatak?"

"I have no idea what that _is_." Ianto said, echoing Jack's thoughts aloud.

"My point exactly." Cally said, taking in deep breaths, because it was becoming painful to breath. "But I do." She looked at Jack. "I can do this."

After a moment, Jack nodded. Cally nodded back. "If I don't make it back, read the note. There is a will back home – my apartment, I mean... Just, make sure the right people get it." She turned to the cart and activated the cart's follow function, then turned back, flinger poised on the rings button. "And…Thank you. For everything."

Then she pressed the button.

* * *

They were startled by the rings that came up from the floor, and then carried Cally and the naquadah bomb away in a flash of light. The sudden silence, after the moments of anger, of fighting and weapons fire, was suddenly eerie. There was a shocked sob from Myles, and Gwen took the zat from Martha, pointed it at the nearest Jaffa and gave a quiet noise of astonishment after firing two shots when the body disintegrated. They felt rooted to the spot, as if waiting for something to tell them to go.

"What exactly happened here?" Tosh asked quietly, looking at the assembled faces.

"I don't know." Martha replied, dazed.

* * *

Three minutes passed and suddenly the rings reappeared and those who had weapons brought them to bear on the technology. Cally stumbled forward out of the rings, but instead of falling down, she began to run, past them, into the workroom and up the stairs, almost passing out but still running.

They followed, horribly easily keeping up with the pace that Cally, injured but not feeling it, had set. It took approximately two minutes. She ran down corridors until she finally reached the Great Court, stopping halfway to the library, and looked up into the darkened night sky.

Jack in front, they stopped a few yards from her, following her example and looking up through the vast glass domed ceiling. Agonizing seconds later the dark sky was light by a brilliant flash, originating from high Earth orbit. It was blinding, so much so that even the Doctor had to shield his eyes from the sudden illumination.

It dimmed after another few minutes, but they could watch it then, the aftermath of the massive explosion still destroying bits of hatak debris. Silence reigned in the Great Court. No one moved, no one wanted to; they were rooted to the spot by the adrenaline that should have made them scramble.

After a minute or two, the Doctor's gaze fell on Cally's upright and prone form, still gazing upward. "Someone from your organization, they'll see this? They'll be coming?"

There was a strangled sound and they realized that Cally was trying not to sob. "No." She choked behind the tears. "There's no one coming."

* * *

End Episode 16

Night of Storms: Part II

* * *

Pandora of Ithilien: It was useful, for a time. The SGC will get into it soon. Well, sort of…

Master of Dreams: I aim to please! Thank you! Not to worry! The next chapter is one I've already written!


	17. Night of Storms: Part III

You would not believe how lucky we all are that this chapter was even posted. Last Friday, I turned on my computer only to have it die on me. The operating system had completely died. Meaning all the files could not be accessed.

Taking it to the computer fixers, they told me that they could fix my computer, but they could not promise to save the files. I ended up playing McGyver and taking the computer apart to take out the hard drive and try to install it into another computer.

My music is gone, but my writing is safe!

Told you we were all lucky!

Disclaimer: I only own the remains of my old computer, and my lovely new computer too.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 17: Night of Storms Part III

Cally felt her knees fold and she was kneeling on the smooth, polished floor of the Great Court, still hearing the words she'd said aloud in her tears echoing about the cavernous space. She could feel their eyes on her, their confusion and horror aimed at her like a knife, but none of that mattered at the moment because her ears were ringing, and the already dark room suddenly seemed to be getting darker.

Owen was the first to reach her, taking off like a shot as the former soldier toppled over. "Jack!" He cried and suddenly Cally's unconscious form was surrounded by eight shell-shocked but concerned people. Martha, being a medical student, pushed her way to the front and helped Owen gently but quickly pull Cally's jacket from her torso. Myles and Gwen both drew in sharp breaths of dismay. Cally's repeatedly forceful trips into the walls of the Museum had caused significant damage. Cally's white tee-shirt was in places soaked with blood, the fabric roughly torn open where lacerations stretched from the middle of her back to her right shoulder and over it, though much of it was already clotting. Enough cloth was torn away that Owen could see significant bruising on Cally's left side.

He pressed her side gingerly and swore. "She's broken at least one rib, and there's probably some internal bleeding."

Myles shakily asked. "But she was running around-"

"The adrenaline probably kept her going." Martha replied, softly smoothing Cally's sweat soaked hair from her face. "Stopped her from feeling the injuries very much."

Jack breathed in softly and stood. "Can she be moved?" His face clearly showed concern for the ex-marine he'd only met two days before, though only the Doctor saw it, but the rest of the group heard it in his voice. "At least, can she hold out until we can get her to a hospital?"

Owen gave a brief smile at the irony of the events. "Like Martha said, she's been running around, she can be moved, but-" He was cut off when Cally's eyes snapped open.

"Matthew!" Cally screamed, struggling to get away from them in her panic. Gwen started to correct her when Cally caught Myles' eyes. "Myles! Treblo told Matthew and the other interns to come in before we opened the 'box'! Where's Matthew?"

In one movement, Gwen, Owen, Ianto, the Doctor and Jack turned to Myles, who suddenly looked sick to his stomach. "I don't know."

"Where's Treblo's storeroom?" Jack asked quickly. It was the best place to look.

"I'll take you." Myles said, stepping away in the urge to run through the Museum to the storeroom.

Jack turned to speak to the rest of them, but then spoke out sharply. "So here's what we're going to –Cally! Don't move!"

"But-" Cally was trying to get up, to go with them.

Jack pointed to Martha and Tosh. "Stay with her!" He ordered before tearing off, the others running rapidly behind, and following Myles.

Cally was still struggling to get up, but Martha was trying to settle her back down and Tosh was trying to provide support to Cally's injured back without hurting her.

"Let me go!" Cally pleaded. "What if they're not there? What if Treblo took them to the Ha'tak?" Cally couldn't bear to look up at the remnants of the explosion she had caused, still glimmering in the sky. There was terror in her heart. What if she'd killed them?

Martha and Tosh looked at each other, and then Martha looked back down at Cally, who had stopped struggling and was finally beginning to feel her injuries, she was cradling her left side, her face pale. Martha relented. She pushed her arm under Cally's. Tosh, seeing the motive, gingerly did the same to Cally's other shoulder.

"Come on." Martha said, and they lifted Cally to her feet. "We've got you."

* * *

They were running hard and fast down Museum corridors, Myles and Jack leading the way, Owen and the Doctor behind them, Gwen and Ianto bringing up the rear. The odds were not good. If they hadn't heard from the interns yet, there was a good chance that they were dead. Cally's thought that they could have been brought to the Hat –thing – ship – had occurred to both Jack and the Doctor, and they glanced worriedly at each other in the barest moment. They both hoped that this wasn't the case. It would be nice to have a lack of causalities for once. They had enough to say and ask Cally anyway, when all of this was over.

Myles stopped short in front of a pair of steel double doors. "It's just down this corridor." He panted, trying the doors and frowning deeply. "These doors should not be locked."

Jack took out the gun he had taken from Cally earlier. "Gwen, Ianto. Come in behind me. Myles don't come in unless we say so, same goes for you Owen. If they need a medic, I don't want you getting shot."

"And me?" The Doctor asked, consenting for the moment not to being the one giving orders. He knew Jack's limits. The man was trying to deal with a sudden, powerful threat he hadn't known how to fight, and he needed some control right now. He felt that it was better to let Jack re-establish that control.

Jack turned towards the doors. "With me, but open the doors for us first, if you don't mind?"

The sonic screwdriver was instantly pointed towards the doors that kept them from being either a rescue party, or a burial crew.

* * *

Jack entered on point, keeping close to the right hand door jam. There was silence in the corridor, and it was relatively dark, light spilling out from nearby, empty offices. He moved forward, the Doctor came in a breath behind, sonic screwdriver aimed into the darkness, Gwen and Ianto falling in behind him. They moved forward down the darkened hall, meeting an ominous lack of resistance. Jack's nerves hummed, expecting an ambush, but none came. Soon they came to the largest room, at the end of the hallway, it was brightly lit, but the door was only ajar. Jack tightened his hold on his gun and pushed the door open. No shots were fired; no energy blasts flew towards him. There was still silence, but it was punctuated by the sound of sobbing. Jack walked fully into the room. The sobbing was coming from behind a viciously humming containment barrier where the interns were huddled together protectively. Jack's heart froze however, at the sight of a young, familiar, and prone figure lay face down on the floor by some of the work desks. Blood had come from her nose and ears, and he was about to write her off as dead when he saw Katie move her head, just slightly. "Owen!" He bellowed.

The Torchwood doctor sped into the room immediately spotted Katie and got to work. The rest of the rescue party – for now that's what it was – came into the room. The Doctor, out of personal preference, gravitated almost instantly to the barrier holding the other interns. They appeared to be aware of the rescue team, but did not make a move towards the barrier. The Doctor reached a hand towards the barrier, and while there was no action on his side, the interns were forced to flinch away quickly.

"Sorry! Sorry!" The Doctor yelled, trying to convey his mistake to the interns, and then turning to find the control box for the field to try and disrupt the field.

Jack was helping Owen take care of the fallen as Ianto and Gwen took point at the door. The sound of the sonic screwdriver louder then even the ever-present hum of the force field around the prisoners.

"How is she?" Jack asked, holding the intern's head still. When they'd entered the room she'd been almost fully face down. Owen had managed to flip her over without causing any harm. Katie's eyes were closed, and she was wandering in and out of consciousness.

"I'm not sure." Owen said worriedly. "It looks like something was – I can't be sure what it did to her, but look at the burn on her forehead."

"What caused it?"

"Not a clue." Owen's terse answer came.

"It's a hand device." A pain- filled voice gasped from the doorway.

Jack shot to the door. Cally was being heavily supported by Martha and Myles, who had taken Tosh's place as load bearer. Jack's face was filled with anger and concern. "I thought I told you not to move!" He said angrily, but he gingerly took Martha's place as burden carrier.

"Had to see-" Cally gasped in pain. The walk had helped her feel her injuries. She saw the barrier and for a moment, pain was forgotten. "Matthew!"

"They're all right!" the Doctor called. "I think. They're a bit upset."

Cally's eyes drifted back to Katie. "Katie?"

Jack lead the way back the unconscious intern, and they lay Cally gentle next to her. Tosh also drifted over. "What did this?" She gasped, seeing Katie's forehead.

"You remember the thing that threw me into the walls?" Cally winced.

"Yes."

"It's called a hand device." Cally reiterated.

"But that threw you into the walls, what happened to Katie?" Owen asked. He had the girl comfortable but didn't know what to do for her.

"Um…she got scrambled." Cally's voice was weak, she was drifting.

"Scrambled?"

"Scrambled. Brain-fried." Not being a doctor, Cally couldn't really elaborate. "It depends on how bad. She probably could recover." She said as Owen started on her own injuries. All he had was a field kit, so better care would have to come from a hospital.

"One device did both things?" Tosh asked, surprised, glancing between the two women and recalling the damage to the room where the 'box' had been, where the battle had taken place.

"It's like a Swiss Army knife. Multi-purpose." Cally tried to joke.

There was a crackling sound and the barrier keeping them from the interns dissipated. Matthew flinched and looked up at the faces of the rescue team. He blinked, drew a shuddering breath and asked. "Is – is it safe?"

"Yes." The Doctor smiled, reaching out his hand. "You're safe now. Is anyone hurt?"

Matthew shook his head, took the offered hand, and stood. He had a heavy bruise on his forehead, as if someone had clobbered him. "Treblo called us down here. It…I don't know what it – he – What happened to him?" Matthew gave a loud, shuddering gasp, starting to become hysterical. "His _eyes_ glowed. He had these people with him, and they had this armor… They forced us to bow. Katie wouldn't – he used this _thing_ on her and-" Matthew started to sob.

The Doctor wasn't sure what to do. Comforting humans generally wasn't his strong point, but he placed a hand gently on the young man's shoulder in an attempt to comfort none the less.

"Katie's ok!" Cally managed to yell, having listened in, and then paused sharply, glancing at Owen. "Owwwwww." She moaned softly. "Hurts."

"That's because you've broken at least one rib." Owen informed her, clearly amused at her childish reaction. "And I could have told you not to yell."

"You could have told me not to go up against a Goa'uld system lord by myself. That would have actually helped." Cally groaned sarcastically. "The ribs explain the pain though."

"Yes they would." Jack said, wondering what a Goa'uld was, gently putting Cally's head on the floor. He crossed to Matthew, who like the other three interns, hadn't really moved.

"The – whatever they were, are gone." Jack told Matthew softly.

Matthew's eyes widened, the other interns looking up in shock. "He- how?

Jack turned towards Cally. "Ask Cally, she stopped it. She seems to know more about whatever's going on than the rest of us."

Matthew stared wide-eyed at his injured friend. Cally looked - ashamed. That alone startled Matthew into looking back at Jack.

"We're going to find a place for you three to stay." The leader of Torchwood Three said gently. "Until we can get all of this sorted out."

"They can stay at my place."

Jack's eyebrows rose in question as he looked at Cally in askance.

"You wanted an explanation." She said simply. "And as much as I hadn't planned to do anything this way-" She glanced at Matthew, then Katie. "I think they need one too."

Jack looked at her face, full of determination along with something he couldn't place, and didn't bother suggesting Retcon.

* * *

Jack discretely called for a pair of ambulances – being the head of Torchwood had its perks. The blast in the upper atmosphere had, of course, been noticed by the citizens of England's capital city. Police cars were racing about the city, sirens blaring. The population of the city, as Jack learned from a quick call to Downing Street, had been placed under emergency lockdown.

Jack had been forced to have the investigation of the events under his own jurisdiction, with the agreement of the Prime Minister. He managed to stall any official reporting that would have to be done until he knew exactly what was going on, at least until the main causality – by the name of Captain Cally Everet, USAF – was able to reliably answer any questions. It also helped that he'd dropped the Doctor's name.

The damage to the Museum had been quite great, at least, in the storeroom, where the grenades had cratered the once pristine marble floor. The Jaffa bodies had been startlingly easy to get rid of, with aid of Cally's zat. Ian's body was a little more difficult, in the Myles had insisted that his friend be given a proper burial. So, Jack was forced to make use of a local morgue that belonged covertly to Torchwood.

Now all they needed was a good cover story for anyone who might come looking.

* * *

Across the ocean, the blast was causing a great stir as well. NORAD and the ESA had been the first to spot the high Earth orbit event, followed only by a slight delay by NASA and other various space programs.

The NORAD report of an unexplained explosion - once it had been determined not to have been a malfunctioning satellite - had been sent by express courier to a little known base in the midst of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

General Landry was the first to see the report and immediately sent for SG-1.

Sam Carter blinked when she saw the report and the description of the blast.

"Any ideas on what it could have been?" Landry asked the team.

"A ship with a cloaking device might have been responsible." Teal'c responded stoically.

Cam Mitchell nodded in agreement.

"But what made it; if it was a ship, explode?" Daniel asked.

General Landry smiled. "It's a very good thing you asked Doctor Jackson, because I'm sending you over there to ask around. Apparently, there was a disturbance at the British Museum the same night."

End Episode 17

Night of Storms: Part III

* * *

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far!

Master of Dreams: The explinations will be…amusing to say the least! The Doctor very well could know about Atlantis. He certainly knows about the Stargate. I'm very sorry I was unable to post before, my computer died and I almost lost all of my files! I had to take the computer apart in order to rescue them!

sci-fi-rocks: Thank you very much!

Pandora of Ithilien: Very true! Someone has to notice a Hatak exploding over London, after all, people at NORAD probably haven't been through the Stargate. Cally is not, however, invisible. Everyone has just, in a sense, forgotten her. So much so, that if someone, say Colonel Sheppard, got pushed to the ground by Cally, he'd think he'd just tripped. He wouldn't remember feeling her hands on his back. Out of sight (figuratively), out of mind (literally).


	18. You see a wheelchair? I don't

Hi Everyone! I'm BACK!

I've been kinda busy this semester, which is why I haven't written anything lately. This is also why this is so short, and a filler chapter.

Enjoy!

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 18: Wheelchairs Are Not Usually Getaway Vehicles

What repeatedly woke Cally was the smell of hospital antiseptic. She'd come to dislike the smell intensely while working at the SGC. Too much time spent in the infirmary. Two years on Atlantis didn't change that habit.

Momentarily she realized that she was very uncomfortable lying on her back, and so she tried to roll onto her side, only to be pushed back again.

"No!" Owen's voice came through the pain meds. "You have to lie on your back; your ribs won't take it."

"How bad?" Cally moaned.

"I'm not going to tell you until you're more awake."

"I'm awake _now_." Cally muttered, already half asleep, again.

Owen chuckled. "Nice try. Go back to sleep."

"Don't want to..." Cally whispered, and then was asleep.

Owen watched her thoughtfully. After the display the night before, there was obviously much more to this woman than met the eye. He'd insisted, when talking to the hospital doctors, that he be able to examine Cally. Whatever job she'd had in the American air force had – obviously – been active. She had the scars to prove it. She was also stronger than she looked, both physically and emotionally. He'd have run the other way from the Goa'uld thing rather than face it like she had, especially since she'd apparently had no back up.

There was a quiet knock on the door of the hospital room, and Jack stuck his head around the door. "Owen, how's our superwoman?"

"When she's awake, very stubborn." Owen drawled. "She either insists on knowing how badly she's been hurt, or insists on getting up."

"Doesn't like sitting still, does she?" Jack sighed down at Cally, who murmured in her sleep and tried to roll onto her side, making Owen groan and Jack chuckle.

"No she doesn't!" Owen griped, forcing Cally onto her back. "I am this close from getting her restraints!"

"Well, try to get by without them. If I give you one set of restraints, then you'll probably get your hands on more, and I don't want to spend a lot of time freeing everyone who annoys you."

"That's not a bad idea." Owen muttered darkly, paused and then said, as if pensively. "Ianto goes first."

Jack laughed.

"I'm amused at the fact that you think I'm kidding." Owen responded, mouth twitching. "How is our other patient?"

Jack rubbed a hand through his hair. "Katie's fine, the burn mark on her head is healing well, according to Martha and another doctor. She woke up in a panic because the last thing she could remember was Ian – Menthu – attacking her with that hand device; Gwen calmed her down with help from Matthew. Tosh is working on the device right now. Myles holed himself up in Ian's storeroom and is practically refused to leave. I sent Ianto with him so Myles didn't open anything that could be dangerous. Then he went home to his wife, Ianto said that he and Myles will head to Cally's apartment afterwards."

Owen nodded. "And your Doctor Smith?"

Jack grinned. "He locked himself in his – room. Claimed to be doing research. Usually, with him, it means that he's discarding books around left, right, and center."

"Not organized then?"

"Not even remotely."

"What about the museum?" Owen asked, the damage to that one room had been extensive.

"Well, we're paying for the repairs." Jack sighed. "I can't say that we don't have the money to do it, and the directors have agreed to keep the whole thing quiet. But I'm worried about having outsiders find out what happened."

"Yeah." Owen agreed. "With a blast that big over London, well, most of the city is used to weird things like that by now, but I'll bet the Americans couldn't help see it."

Jack nodded grimly. "That's what I'm worried about. I'm monitoring incoming flights right now for anyone with – unusual jobs or backgrounds coming into London."

"Well then, let's hope we don't get anyone whose job it is to ask questions."

*

On the other side of the world, General Jack O'Neill was pestering his best friend. "Where are you going, again?"

"England, Jack. You _have_ been there before. And I've mentioned my trip more than once."

"Why?"

"You… you don't read your security briefings do you?"

"The ones about the 'gate, yeah. Someone else reads the rest! That's what my aides are there for!"

Daniel snorted and rolled his eyes. Jack was far more competent than he appeared; he just liked to pretend that he wasn't. It had stopped working on Daniel years ago, if it had ever worked at all.

"I'm investigating the mysterious blast above the British Museum. Apparently, the Museum itself suffered some damage, and who better to investigate a Museum then a former archaeologist? Despite a disgraced one."

"I'll come with you!" Jack grinned, hoping. He ignored Daniel's statement about being disgraced, not because he didn't feel bad for his friend, but because he didn't know what to say about it.

"No." Daniel zipped up his suitcase. "I'll be fine. Besides, doesn't the Air Force need you?"

"I'm a General." Jack shrugged, trying to make a case. "And they don't need me around all the time. Besides, I think Walter needs a break from me."

Daniel almost laughed. It was clear that Jack was pretending to ignore his no, and then a thought occurred to him. "You're already packed, aren't you?"

"Yup!"

Daniel did laugh this time. "Then you go ahead, I'll meet you at the motor pool, I just have to get a few other things."

"Wahoo!" Jack beat a fist in the air and left, reaching for a duffle bag he'd propped up on the outside of the door jam.

Daniel shook his head in amusement. A few minutes after Jack had left the room, Walter walked in. "He's going with you?"

Daniel nodded. Walter gave him a very large, very relieved smile in return. "Sir, if there is anything you ever need done. Just let me know!"

Daniel grinned. "When I get back, I'm going to need a ton of aspirin, and a Simpsons DVD set to placate Jack."

Walter grinned. "I'll get every season, sir. I'll get more paperwork done this way."

*

Katie felt someone rub another cool ointment on the massive burn on her forehead and sighed. "I feel like I'm covered in oil."

Martha grinned down at her. "That's because you are."

"Thanks." Katie said sarcastically. "Real help, you are. I come out of a frightening experience, and you tease me."

Martha smiled. "Yeah. It's what I do."

Katie smiled for a moment. "It's what Cally would do, I think."

Martha paused for a minute. "She's your friend, isn't she?"

Katie nodded. "Yeah, just as much as Matthew and the others are. She's a bit – she's a bit odd really. It's like she's seen a lot more than she's telling. You said – you said - that she stopped Ian – the thing?"

Martha hesitated for a moment. "She did."

Katie could tell that Martha was holding something back. "Is she ok?" She asked tentatively.

The girl had a right to know. "Two broken ribs, a fractured rib, a concussion – that's better now though, a variety of bruises, practically a displaced shoulder. Covered in lacerations."

"What happened!?" Katie looked horrified.

"She took several…forceful… trips into the wall."

"Forceful…" Katie stared. "You don't get injuries like that from being pushed!" She cried.

Martha sighed. "I suppose I should tell you what happened."

*

The Doctor was, as Jack had predicted, going through his library and throwing books about in a fashion that would have given any decent librarian a coronary.

It was one specific book he was looking for, though because he had been so many places and had collected so much that this specific book was proving relatively difficult to find. It had something to do with that ring with the puddle in the middle, he was sure of it. If only he could remember – with a flash it came to him. Chappai'ai! That's what it was! It was called a Stargate! The Doctor grinned. Now he just needed to figure out what Cally had been up to.

He'd have to keep the Stargate a secret though. He couldn't tell anyone else, not until Cally decided to tell them all.

*

Gwen poked her head into the hospital room and was happy to see Cally peering blearily back at her through half – lidded eyes.

"Hey!" Gwen walked to the bed and gently took Cally's hand.

"Hi." Cally smiled sleepily. "I'm in hospital?" She said softly.

"Yes, how do you feel?"

"Been better, I'll admit. But I've never had so much sleep." Cally sounded more coherent than a moment before.

"Mmm, I've long forgotten what that's like."

"Me too. Myles is a slave driver." Cally joked momentarily before becoming somber. "Is Myles ok? I-"

"He's fine. He went home to his wife, right now he and the other interns are making your apartment livable."

"Good." Cally said, not registering the jibe at her messy living style. "Is he…mad?"

Gwen hesitated. In truth, Myles had barely said anything at all since the incident at the museum. He had walked through Cally's apartment as if looking for clues, some sort of answer as to who his friend was and what had just taken place. He did not seem angry, but only time would tell.

Gwen didn't miss the sudden tears that erupted from the woman in the hospital bed. Cally sniffed, and then covered her face with the hand Gwen wasn't holding and began to sob. "I didn't mean for any of this! You weren't even supposed to be there yet! I wish I'd never come to England!"

"If you hadn't, there would have been no one to stop whatever happened."

Cally looked sharply at Gwen with wide eyes, then made a tear –soaked, choked, laughing sound. "Yeah, I guess so. London would have been dust." She stilled for a moment. "You know, I left my last post because I was wallowing in self pity after the last 'accident'." Cally pushed her head further into her pillow. "Only this time, I've hurt a ton of people, both physically and mentally, probably lost the best friend I've had in over a year, and put a city in danger. I'm back to where I started, just worse." She sounded bitter.

"That isn't true."

Cally glared. "Say that again and mean it."

Gwen said nothing. Cally nodded, and then looked at the ceiling. "Thought so."

"But you still miss it?" Jack's voice came from the door frame, drawing the attention of both women. "The base you were on?"

Cally nodded again. "It was home – before London. It's been a while, I know, but…" She let her answer hang. "I do like London. And working at the Museum and for Myles as his intern. It's not like working there isn't exciting and dangerous." The weak attempt at a joke seemed to make her sick, though Gwen recognized her reference to the previous night and nodded. Jack said nothing.

"After all, paper cuts can be devastating."

That did get smiles out of the two Torchwood operatives.

After a moment's hesitation, Cally asked in a small voice. "What do you two do for a living?"

Jack straightened; he'd known that this question would come eventually.

"Because it's clear that it isn't archaeology. And if you say its public works, that's just as bad." Cally kept going. "Though, I do like your idea of public service. Thanks." She was referring to their assist against the Goa'uld.

Jack's face was unreadable. "Your version was interesting too."

Cally closed her eyes. "Yeah. Well, it's not like I could stand by and do nothing. It was my duty – sort of." She opened her eyes and looked at Jack. "It used to be, anyway."

There was a momentary quiet as the Torchwood operatives digested her words, and then Cally spoke again.

"Are you going to arrest me?" She said suddenly. "Can you?"

Jack hesitated for a moment that brought terror to Cally's stomach.

"No." He said softly, meeting her eyes.

And then a familiar face on a wheeled bed appeared in the doorway, and Katie waved cheerfully. "Cally! We're going to be roommates!"

It wasn't until Jack moved from the door to let the nurses through that it occurred to Cally that he hadn't indicated which question he was answering.

*

Two days later, it was taunting her. Cally was sure of it. Though, honestly, it could have been the meds.

The motorized wheelchair had been placed just at the other side of the hallway across from her hospital room. And it looked like it was begging to be driven.

Cally sighed and stared at the ceiling. Martha and Owen would probably have a conniption if she did take the thing for a spin, but escaping the infirmary was a soldier's sworn duty wasn't it? An unwritten rule, so to speak?

"Are you that bored?" Katie asked from the other hospital bed, wondering why Cally wasn't talking to her.

Cally turned her head to the right to face Katie. "No. You are not boring me. It's just...I think I might have mentioned...Do you remember me ever telling you about escaping from the infirmary?"

"Yeah, like it was a sport..."

"Well, there is an empty wheelchair just across the hall and..."

Katie burst out laughing, and then frowned. "I get it. But you shouldn't be walking around in your condition."

"But mooom!" Cally whined like a five year old, provoking another laugh.

"Owen and Martha will kill you." Katie warned.

"Whoever they are." Cally muttered. She had been a prisoner more than once in her life, and had the same feeling from the treatment she was getting from Captain Harkness and his supposed 'team'.

Katie didn't know how to respond to that one, so she watched Cally think. After hearing from Martha what Cally had done – saved them all - she'd started looking at the former USAF pilot differently than she had when Cally had started to work at the BM. Cally was still funny - and hated boredom - but there was something harder about this woman than Katie had noticed before. She was facing the wounds, the battle, all of this; like she'd seen it all before, which made Katie wonder what Cally had ever faced in the Air Force had been worse. Cally hadn't said.

And there was the fact that they were treating Cally almost like a prisoner. She didn't know what Captain Harkness had said to Cally before the nurses put her in the same room, but Katie could have sworn that Cally's face had been deathly pale when Captain Harkness had walked out. Cally was trying to put a good face on things for her. That strength, Katie supposed, had been there all along, but Katie could see it for what it was now.

"Cally?"

"Yep?"

"Do you have friends that you should call to let them know what happened?"

For a split second, Katie saw the mask drop, revealing a pain that went beyond the meds, and then the mask was back. "I told you about my accident, right?"

Katie nodded. "But it's not like you can't tell anyone! It was just a lab accident!"

Cally was silent for far longer than Katie would have liked. Then, Cally muttered something that sounded vaguely like a swear word. "No. This particular lab accident makes it practically impossible." Cally looked angry, but her voice was bitter.

Katie watched as slowly Cally moved, wincing, into an upright position, and then got out of bed.

"Cally? Where are you-?"

"What kind of pudding do you like best?" Cally still sounded cross.

"Butterscotch, but Cally -"

"I'll be back." Cally had made it out of the room, having grabbed some money out of the black pants slung over the visitor's chair. The next sound Katie heard was of a motorized scooter moving stealthily down the hallway, then it came back. Cally poked her head into the room. "I'll get you a sandwich if you stall whoever comes to check on us."

Katie blinked, looked down at the tray of food she'd dared not touch because it looked inedible, and then smiled back at Cally. "If it's roast beef on rye, you're on."

Cally gave a quiet whoop - she had an ally at last - so as not to alert the nurses, and then proceeded back towards the elevators.

*

Fifteen minutes after Cally's 'great escape', Gwen walked into the hospital room and saw that Cally's bed was empty.

Katie waved. "Hi Gwen!"

Gwen frowned at the empty bed. "Hello! How are you doing this morning?"

Katie was trying not to laugh her head off, but was succeeding in keeping up a facade of normalcy. "Better, though I'd really like to go take a look in the mirror."

"I'll get one of the nurses to give you one." Gwen promised. "Where's Cally?" She asked, pointing to the bad.

"Bathroom." Katie replied.

"The bathroom door is wide open." Gwen said with a raised eyebrow, pointing to the open door of the hospital room's bathroom.

Katie didn't flinch. "She went down the hall. She woke me up when she was getting out of bed and went down the hall so I could go back to sleep."

"Right." Gwen said, unbelieving, and pulled out her cell phone.

Ten minutes, and a few more unsuccessful, probing questions, the Doctor, Martha, the museum staff, and the rest of the Torchwood team were also standing in the room.

The Doctor was trying to hide a grin, Katie could tell, but Captain Harkness looked downright furious.

"Where did she go?"

"She didn't say." Katie had been fed up with the Captain's attitude the minute he'd walked in. Acting as if Cally didn't have free will.

Jack's jaw clenched. "Katie, I really do need to know where she went." The rest of his team looked like they were afraid of getting in the way of his anger.

"Why?" Katie finally snapped. "Is she a prisoner?"

Myles' and Matthew's gazes snapped to Jack's face, and were a little perturbed by the slow, almost hesitant shake of Jack's head. "No, she isn't a prisoner."

"Then why does it matter?"

In Martha's opinion, this was going to turn into either a childish shouting match or Jack was going to blow his top. Martha noted the time and realized something far worse. She interjected before Jack could reply.

"Because I think her pain medication wore off ten minutes ago." Everyone looked at Martha, who looked like she was ready to run out of the room, track Cally down, and stick her with a syringe. "And she's probably going to be in a lot of pain."

"Damn." Owen said, looking at his own watch, then started out of the room, and headed towards the nurse's station. It was a subdued reaction, which meant that it was serious.

Katie looked sheepish, and then said. "She mentioned something about pudding and a sandwich."

* * *

Thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far! I just found out about the new review system, and it's shiny!

Please review! It's my bread, butter and strawberry jam! You can't have toast without strawberry jam. It's almost a universal law. Rasberry jam and marmalade are also acceptable.


	19. Tensions

So, my need to update was overshadowed by work, so I apologize for the lack of update –ish – ness that has existed over the last three months. Hope this makes up for it.

Happy Holidays to everyone as well!

-TS

Disclaimer: I own nothing; all characters with the exception of Cally, Myles and the Interns are lovingly borrowed with no profits being gained.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 19: Tensions

Matthew and Myles found Cally just outside the hospital cafeteria, slowly edging the wheelchair towards a bank of elevators and clutching the spot on her torso where her broken ribs must be.

She was an awful shade of concrete gray and sweating from the pain. Matthew jogged ahead of the suddenly hesitant museum curator to squat in front of Cally's escape vehicle, so that she could see him while she was doubled over in pain.

"Cally?" He asked, trying to assess Cally's condition.

"Matthew?" Cally gasped, but she managed to give a small, quick smile to show that she was at least happy to see him in that moment. "Are you ok?" She asked.

He smiled at the irony. She was asking _him_ if he was ok. "Better than you." Matthew said, reaching out and rebalancing the pudding cups on Cally's tray. "We'll take you back upstairs."

"We?" Cally gulped.

"We." Myles said, coming into Cally's field of view.

Cally became paler, though not from pain. Myles took a hold of the wheelchair control. Her reaction to seeing him echoed his own feelings. What exactly could they say to one another? Myles knew that Cally had not killed Ian, he'd seen Cally hesitate. It was Captain Harkness who'd done that particular killing. He also knew that it had not been Ian whom Cally had been fighting three nights ago, but the fact remained that Ian was dead. A part of him blamed her for it.

Shoving his feelings this aside for the moment Myles pushed the wheelchair forward. "Come along wanderer, time to go back to bed."

Cally was very silent on the way back upstairs, to Matthew's dismay. Myles was just as quiet.

* * *

Captain Harkness however, was much more vocal in his opinion of Cally's trip to the cafeteria.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Jack snapped at her once Cally was safely back in her hospital and hopped up on the pain meds the disapproving but silent nurses. His body language echoed the anger he felt. Arms crossed over his chest, Jack's entire body was taught, as if he was restraining himself from walking over and chaining her to the bed, or at least from shaking some sense into her. "You shouldn't be trying to leave! Not without saying a word to anyone!" Under his anger Jack realized he should have mentioned that she shouldn't have tried to leave in her condition, but the thought was so buried that he didn't acknowledge it.

Before Jack could continue telling her off, Cally had popped open one of the vanilla pudding cups and had shoved a spoonful of the gooey concoction into her mouth, barring any conversation.

There was an air of challenge in Cally's actions as she continued to eat because as she did so, her defiantly sparkling eyes never left Jack's angrily glittering ones.

The room was silent as the rest of the occupants waited for the bomb to drop. Cally was no longer in pain, but no one knew how to deal with this impending crisis. The tension in the air was far too thick, both anger and frustration clogging up the air. Cally hadn't actually tried to escape, but Jack was taking it like she had. The rest of Torchwood had been taking their cues from Jack because they normally did, which made them treat her like a prisoner as well. If there was going to be a compromise, it needed to be made now, but it all depended on which side would concede first. Myles and the interns were playing neutral.

The long moments of tension were momentarily broken when Owen muttered "I think we've been transported to the Wild West." Owen almost felt as if he should be watching carefully to see who had the quicker draw.

Ianto snorted, trying to hide smile that threatened at the corners of his mouth. The Doctor did smile, but neither Cally nor Jack moved or glanced away from one another.

Seconds later Cally paused between spoonfuls of pudding to comment. "I'm a little surprised that I wasn't handcuffed to the bed after Matthew and Myles brought me back up here." Her tone was colder that they'd ever heard it. She'd captured Jack's unspoken air of potential jailer and put it into words.

Martha blinked in surprise, startled by the jarring tone that the normally happy woman was using. Though Cally's timbre was the same even tone as ever, the thick overtones spoke clearly of anger. It was a tone that Martha could imagine Jack using. This didn't help matters, because Jack seemed to realize this as well.

"You are not a prisoner." Jack said through clenched teeth, but it came out closer to a low growl.

"Really?" Cally said flatly, her mouth pinched in anger. "The fact that you all rushed down here because I happened to disappear for fifteen minutes-"

"We were worried!" Matthew interrupted his eyes wide. He glanced at the Torchwood team, then at Myles and said quietly. "Well, I was."

Myles gave a small, nearly imperceptible nod to indicate that he too had been worried over his friend's well being. He was still in mourning for Ian, and Cally's lies had not helped to smooth the new distance between them. Cally caught the nod though. Both it and Matthew's defense warmed her a little more than they should have.

"You _are_ injured." Matthew said lamely, not daring to look at Jack, but sat looking dejected while trying to state his case to a roomful of people whom he suddenly felt estranged. Clearly making excuses here wasn't going to be helpful.

Cally shifted her gaze briefly to the fairly large bruise on Matthew's head and then looked away, unsure of how to respond. Jack watched Cally's face, seeing the momentary darkening of her expression coupled with the furrowing of her eyebrows and recognized guilt when he saw it. She obviously felt that what had happened to Matthew had been her fault. For all Jack knew, it could have been. The anger overwhelmed him.

"Most people with your injuries don't try to escape a hospital room!" Jack's tone was even, but there was still anger hidden underneath the clear voice. Cally's attention snapped back to the leader of Torchwood Three, expression suddenly hard once more and her eyes stony in a tumultuous glare. "Does it look like I was _escaping_?" She said, waving the pudding cup at him. "Seriously?" She was completely impertinent now, her lips curled up into a sneer.

Jack's jaw twitched as he fought back an angry retort. "You disappeared." He finally answered. "And she-" He pointed to Katie. "Was covering up for you!"

"Yes. Because I promised her a sandwich!" Cally said sarcastically. "Such a _dangerous _thing to want!"

"You could have ordered room service." Ianto said quietly, stating what he thought was obvious.

Cally laughed bitterly. "Sure. Have you ever spent serious time in a hospital? Generally the only food you get is given to you at meal times! You ask for something in between meals and chances are that you'll never get it! What harm was there in trying to get some snacks by myself?"

Ianto said nothing in reply, because he didn't know what to say.

Katie blinked in surprise. Cally hadn't given her a reason why she wanted to leave the hospital room. She'd gotten the impression that Cally had just been a little annoyed and needed to cool off. The snack think sounded like an excuse. The cooling off obviously hadn't done her any good.

"Plenty!" Jack snapped again. "What guarantee would we have had that you wouldn't have just left the hospital?"

Cally glared. "It would be stupid for me to do something like that, Harkness. Everyone I know that I could have gone to in London happens to be standing in this room."

It took a moment for that to sink in, a moment in which Jack was momentarily taken aback. She really had nowhere to go, which did make escaping sound stupid altogether. "You could have been trying to get out of telling us what had happened." Jack said bluntly, accusing her.

Instantly Cally's face turned red with fury. "Do you really think I'd do that?" She yelled. The instant appearance of a nurse in the doorway behind those assembled made Cally swallow and hiss more quietly. "Do you really think, after you watched me stop London's destruction, after the interns got hurt, after you all nearly got killed, that I wouldn't give you an explanation? That I would just walk off and let you clean up the mess? If that's what you think of me – if that's what you think of me, I don't see why I shouldn't consider myself a prisoner after all!"

Jack blinked at the ferocity for a moment, hearing as if in an afterthought the barely perceptible choke of tears at the end of Cally's rant. "You aren't one. Do I have to keep telling you that?" He managed to say.

Cally gave a low and angry growl of frustration and practically bit the plastic spoon full of pudding in half as she stuffed it angrily into her mouth. They glared at each other in anger once again, everyone else in the room too enthralled by the fight to stop it.

"Then what do you want from me Captain Harkness?" Cally said quietly after the tension died a little and she'd swallowed the pudding. "Do you want me to tell you everything right now? Far before I think I'm ready to?"

"I don't want anything from you." Jack said, but his brain was screaming that this was a lie. "Not before you're ready. And not when you still think we're somehow out to get you." He growled. "I'm not even sure what to think of you."

"Peachy." Cally drawled. "Now I'm the enemy." She continued too fast for Jack to interrupt, but spoke more kindly this time. "If I promise not to pull something else like this, will you stop treating me like a flight risk?"

Jack knew a concession when he saw one and backed down as well. "Yes. But just to reiterate, you're not a prisoner." He glanced at Matthew, and then his turned his attention back to Cally. "We were just concerned that something might have happened to you."

Cally dropped her eyes from his gaze, not sure if she believed him or that she accepted his concern. "I've had worse." She mumbled. "Don't bother worrying."

Jack moved until he was standing almost next to her torso as she lay on the bed, Cally could feel him standing there. She wasn't looking at him, but down at her pudding cup as if it was the most fascinating object on the planet. A few seconds later she was forced to look up at him when Jack uncrossed his arms and a strong, warm hand curled itself under her chin, pulling her face gently upwards and around so that he was looking sternly into her eyes again.

"Too bad, Miss Cally – former pilot – Everet. You've got my worry whether or not you want it. All of us were worried. Explanation or no." All anger had left his voice, having been replaced by a softer, gentler tone that was meant to calm her.

Cally was still stunned with his proclamation when he dropped his hand from her chin and walked out of the room. She looked at the others in the room, and found she couldn't form a coherent sentence, so she just sat in shocked silence.

* * *

Jack O'Neill had been remarkably quiet the entire trip to England. They'd caught the first plane they reasonably could – because of the short notice - heading overseas without 'borrowing' a military transport. This allowed Daniel to sleep for most of the trip, except for a good forty – five minutes in which Jack forced his friend to wake up and eat something. Daniel was disinclined to do so, until Jack put his earphones in Daniel's ears and played the Simpsons theme at full blast.

Jack relented when Daniel calmly, but frighteningly, informed him that if any Simpsons related music was to blast through his ears for any other time during the trip, the music player would mysteriously disappear through an event horizon when they got back.

When they finally landed at Heathrow, Jack and Daniel completely expected to just hail a cab and go straight to their hotel to drop off their bags, but apparently, someone else had other ideas.

"General O'Neill? Doctor Jackson?" A tentative voice with a British accent asked over the noise of the Arrivals gate traffic.

Both Daniel and Jack looked at one another and then at the speaker.

"Yes?" Daniel cleared his throat and answered the clean –shaven, obviously military young man in black standing there.

The man smiled. "Good morning and welcome to England. I've been sent to collect you."

"Collect us?" Jack asked the disbelief in his voice masked by the stolid way he answered. "By who?" Jack paused. "Whom?"

The man grinned. "By Russell Chapman, sir. From the IOA."

Daniel and Jack gave each other looks of perplexed confusion that only they could have read and then Daniel looked back at their black –clad escort.

"Um, ok, we'll follow you then."

* * *

A little way from the Arrivals gate, surrounded by other black – clad men and women there was a room that was usually reserved for foreign dignitaries. It was in this room that they found Russell Chapman, the British Representative to the International Oversight Advisory committee, waiting for them.

The thin, gray – haired man standing in the center of the wood – paneled room, seemingly biding his time and gave them a smile.

"Welcome to England gentlemen. I trust your trip was a nice one?"The friendly remark was customary when meeting foreign dignitaries.

"Fine." Jack said slowly. "Not to be rude, but how exactly did you know we were coming? It's not as if we told anyone."

"General Landry called me." Russell answered. "He thought we might like to know that two members of SG-1 were going to be around and about, so to speak. Considering what SG-1 has done for this planet time and time again, I thought it would be stupid of me to just let you walk off of a plane and not have some sort of decent reception."

Jack blinked. That was fair, unexpected, but fair. Though Jack had wanted to walk into the country and pretend that this was a mini-vacation.

"Did he tell you that we were investigating that mysterious blast above London?" Daniel asked. This man would not have appeared to greet them unless he knew that they were there for a reason. The flattery was non – withstanding.

Russell nodded. "Absolutely. Actually I was wondering if we could collaborate on the investigation. We – the British government - are already looking into the matter." The corner of his mouth upturned in an awkward smile. "It was over London after all. However, we would appreciate your insight."

It seemed completely aboveboard, and since General Landry had called… After a quick glance at his archaeologist – and the person he trusted most in diplomacy – Jack nodded to Russell. "Fine by us."

Russell nodded and waved his hand. Instantly there were black – clad guards in the room, waiting for Daniel and Jack by the door. "Excellent. These gentlemen will take you to your hotel. In your car there are files containing what we know about the blast so far. Up to date information will be given to you as soon as we have it. Is that acceptable?"

Daniel blinked. He hadn't expected this degree of order. "Yes but-" But they were already being ushered out of the door.

Once the door quietly clicked behind the two Americans, Russell gestured to the man who'd first greeted Daniel and Jack and gave him one simple order. "At all costs, keep them from the British Museum. I don't want it to be even mentioned to them in the information packets we gave them. Understood?" He said sternly, the smile having dropped from his face when the two members of SG-1 had left the room.

"Understood sir." The man saluted and left the room.

After checking that he was alone, Russell snapped open a cell phone and barked one order into the phone. "Get me Captain Jack Harkness."

* * *

The evening of the fight with Jack, Katie was poking Cally. This was quite a feat considering that their beds were approximately four to five feet away from one another. It was around eight when Gwen came in to check on them for the last time that day and found that Katie had tied together a collection of straws, medical tape, plastic forks and a few plastic rods from the room's curtain and was prodding a sleeping Cally.

The former USAF Captain was sleeping blissfully on a cocktail of pain meds and sedatives, drooling slightly into to hospital pillow, and being gently poked in the cheek by a giggling Katie.

"Callllly!" Katie said, drawing out the syllables in Cally's name like she was talking to a two – year old as she poked. "Oh Calllyyyy…."

Gwen smothered laughter and had to duck out into the hallway, back against the wall and hands firmly clasped over her mouth to keep any sound from escaping. When she came back into the room, Katie was waiting for her with a large smile.

"Why is it whenever I come in here, that there is some sort of insane drama going on?" Gwen asked playfully, chuckling softly and moving towards Katie's bed.

"Because like most people, we like to be entertaining." Katie said; smile bright for someone in a hospital bed. "And what's more entertaining than being annoying?"

"I don't think she noticed." Gwen retorted, next to Katie now but nodding her head towards the sleeping woman, who muttered something and tried to roll over.

Katie pouted. "I _know_. It's very disappointing."

"You're on pain meds too aren't you?" Gwen asked, amused.

"I _wish_." Katie murmured. "Then I'd be out like her!"

"Did she calm down when we left?"

Katie nodded. "Mmm. Yeah. That fight was something else."

Gwen hesitated. "Yes." She finally admitted. "Jack is extremely stubborn, and it looks like Cally is just the same. I'm glad she backed down; otherwise we'd all still be here! Well, at least until the nurses decided to throw us out at least."

Katie shook her head. "I think Cally would be just as happy to be thrown out with you. She keeps asking the nurses if it would be possible to accelerate healing, the nurses have started to ignore her now."

Gwen grinned. "She should be thankful that she isn't under Owen's care, he's not exactly patient."

"Speaking of leaving, when can I leave?" Asked Katie. All she had was a burn to her forehead.

"Hopefully, either tomorrow or the day after, so I'm told." Gwen gave Katie an encouraging half- smile. "I suspect Cally will try to be released at the same time."

Katie grinned ferociously. "You'd have to chain her to the…" Katie's voice trailed off. "You could drug her twenty four seven."

They both glanced at Cally. Cally muttered something about flying cheeseburgers and tried to shift to a more comfortable position.

"I don't think that's such a good idea." Gwen said tactfully.

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Jack Harkness crossed his arms and stubbornly watched the gray haired man approach him in the parking garage of a nondescript apartment building in the middle of London.

He knew the man named Russell Chapman was somehow big in the government, especially that he was in charge of overseeing UNIT and monitored Torchwood, for all that Torchwood was a purely civilian organization. Still, for him to call and demand an emergency meeting was something he'd never done before.

"I did. Two employees in the American Air Force got off of a plane at Heathrow forty – five minutes ago. They are here to investigate the blast; I thought you might want to know."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "That's it? Just, 'I thought you might want to know'?"

Russell sighed. He'd known that Captain Harkness would be obstinate, just not as completely as he was being right now. "What would you like to know?"

"For starters, who are they? Did they mention anything about the British Museum?"

Russell hesitated before replying. "They are Doctor Daniel Jackson and Major General Jack O'Neill. No, they have no asked about the Museum and I have instructed all of my personnel to keep any mention of the Museum away from them. Unfortunately, Doctor Jackson happens to be an archeologist, so he may have an urge to visit before he returns home."

Jack swore mentally and then nodded. "Fine, we should be done repairing what we can in a day or so. How long will they be staying?"

"I have no idea." Russell admitted. "Most likely until they gain some understanding of what happened."

Now Captain Harkness seemed to hesitate. "Did they…"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Did they mention looking for anyone from the United States that might have been involved?"

Russell's eyes narrowed automatically. "Do you know something I don't, Captain?"

"Probably a ton." Jack answered, trying not to sound like he was being deliberately callous. "But…I think I know someone with some answers. She claims to be a Captain in the United States Air Force, which I do believe as she is listed. But she also stopped the blast from destroying London."

Russell's eyes had opened in surprise. "Oh?" He sounded trite. "Why haven't you told me this before?" He hadn't been told that London could have been destroyed!

"Never had a chance." Jack shrugged. "I also didn't think that it mattered to anyone who was directly involved. Does it matter?"

Russell hesitated. "It might." If the United States Air Force had a member of the SG-C stationed in England and had not informed the British government, there would be severe consequences, possibly even termination of British support for the Stargate Program. Not that Captain Harkness knew anything about the Stargate. Neither Doctor Jackson nor General O'Neill had mentioned anything about anyone they had specifically needed to see in England.

Jack's eyes narrowed this time, and after a few moments of self – deliberation, he said hesitantly. "Well then, I think you'd better come with me." He turned and started walking away from Russell.

"And where exactly would we be going?" Russell called behind him, not wanting to follow the unpredictable head of Torchwood Three unless he was absolutely sure of his intentions.

"To talk to our mysterious Captain." Jack said, not looking back at Russell. "I suspect that you want to. Am I right?"

Jack smiled as he heard Russell jogging to catch up.

* * *

End Episode 19

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, I'm very sorry for the delay in this chapter!

All reviews, comments, suggestions and flames especially are extremely appreciated!


	20. Duct Tape and Static

I'm back! Really!

Disclaimer: I own nothing; all characters with the exception of Cally, Myles and the Interns are lovingly borrowed. I make no profit from any of this.

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 20: Duct Tape and Static

Jack Harkness glared at the nurse on duty. Most would immediately do whatever the near – immortal requested of them, cowering away from the intensity of the stare.

This nurse was having none of it.

Two seconds later Jack moaned and ran a tired hand over his face to the sound of Russell Chapman's chuckling. He'd been his most charming, had flirted with the nurse in a manner that would have most people snogging him in a broom cupboard, and had even offered her money. The each time he received the same response.

"I don't care who you are, Captain. Miss Everet is sleeping. Also, visiting hours ended at nine last night. It is almost one in the morning! I will not let you see her!"

Russell choked back another laugh, making Jack turn around and give him a less stern version of the glare.

"What?"

"I think, perhaps, that she may be right?" The International Oversight Advisory committee member was openly grinning now.

After a moment, Jack grinned as well. "Fine. It is a little late. We'll meet here tomorrow around ten?"

"Agreed." Russell nodded. "Try not to make any more enemies among the nurses, would you?"

Jack blinked in astonishment as Russell Chapman turned around and headed for the nearest elevator bank. A slow, sensual smile drifted easily across his mouth as he began to follow Russell. "Make enemies of the nurses? Me? I have better ideas…."

* * *

Cally was woken approximately around eight the next morning by a curtain rod to her cheek, and the sound of many people smothering laughter.

"What'sgoingon?" Cally slurred as she opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred with sleep for a few moments, but then sharpened to see those who'd come to see her after her 'escape' from the hospital bed.

"Good morning!" The Doctor grinned at her.

Cally glanced to where Katie was waving _something_ wrapped in duct tape at her. That four foot something had evidently been used to poke her with.

"What _is_ that?" Cally asked, not fully awake, but wondering if she'd been transported to the Twilight Zone.

"I was bored." Katie smiled.

There was a pause throughout the room as everyone waited for Cally to say something.

She grinned, but asked. "What completely insane person gave you duct tape! That's like giving a magpie shiny things!"

The Doctor smiled impishly. "She said she'd be doing something constructive. Who am I to deny someone their creativity?"

Cally glanced back at Katie and chuckled. "I should have asked for duct tape."

"What would you have done with duct tape?" Gwen asked, slightly interested.

Cally shrugged. "Anything! It's duct tape!"

Jack shook his head, a smile threatening the corner of his mouth. Conversations with the other American Captain always amused him. "Are you awake now?"

"If I say no, can I go back to sleep?" Cally asked, trying to act as if she was still sleepy. The conversation had woken her up considerably.

Owen snorted. That was exactly what he had wanted to do.

"Funny, but no." Jack smirked. "After we put you back in here last night, I got a phone call."

"Oh? It can't be anyone I know."

"He mentioned that two personnel from the United States Air Force stepped off a plane yesterday. They're here to investigate the blast."

Cally sat up slowly, so not as to exacerbate her ribs. "Who told you _that_?" She asked slowly, her sudden curiosity overriding the sudden drop of her stomach.

Jack crossed his arms and grinned at her, feeling like getting some payback for the day before. "Why do you want to know?"

Cally snorted and rolled her eyes at him. "_Jack_." Cally said as Martha came to the side of the bed and put a pillow behind Cally's back, seeing how she was beginning to sag back into the bed. "I want to know, because whoever told you is obviously high up to be informed that two personnel were going _anywhere_ to investigate something like this." The tone was even.

Jack nodded. It did annoy him more than he'd admit; Cally was so mysterious about everything. About the bomb, what she'd used to work on. Cally was hiding a ton of information, and she wasn't telling. It went against the grain, Jack thought. He ran a secret organization! He was supposed to be the one with the answers! Instead, Cally had them all!

Jack uncrossed his arms and shrugged. "I'd never even heard of him before, but he's supposed to be in charge of UNIT's dealings with other governments. His name is Russell Chapman."

Cally went white. "Russell Chapman?" Her voice had gone hoarse from shock. Cally gulped her mind suddenly devoid of all thought. "As in Russell Chapman, the IOA representative?"

"The what representative?" Jack asked, his forehead furrowing in confusion.

Cally looked surprised, eyes widening at Jack's lack of knowledge. "The International Oversight Advisory?" She asked, hoping that she'd luck out and someone would know what she was talking about. She was momentarily dumbfounded when everyone stared back at her blankly.

Cally put a hand to her forehead. "Oh boy." She whimpered. She couldn't tell them what the International Oversight Committee was without telling them what the Stargate was.

"He's coming here." Jack said nonchalantly, pretending that he wasn't completely unnerved by Cally's Declaration of an organization that he'd never heard of, and apparently frequented by a man he'd only met yesterday.

If that had unnerved him, Cally's next reaction could have floored him. It surprised everyone. Gwen was good at reading people, as a copper she'd had to be. Cally's reaction spoke of unadulterated panic. Cally had swiftly glanced up, her face paler than when Jack revealed the identity of his contact.

Cally couldn't speak for a few seconds, despite gasping. The Doctor, having guessed about the gate, walked over to Cally and lent a hand in moral support.

What bothered him the most was that if this Chapman was involved with the Stargate, which meant that whatever was affecting Cally, might also have an impact on the man coming to the hospital.

Finally Cally rasped, "When will he be here?"

"Ten." Jack replied.

Cally glanced at the clock on the wall. It read 8:45. She looked back at Jack. "He can't come. He can't!"

"Why?" Ianto asked, puzzled and curiosity getting the best of him.

Cally drew in a shuddering breath, still clutching the Doctor's hand. Owen had gone to look for some sedatives while Martha tried to calm the former air force woman down. The Doctor wanted to ask the same.

"Do you remember how the Jaffa couldn't see me? How they practically didn't even notice that I was there?"

Tosh nodded. She wanted to know how that was done.

"There is a chance that he might not be able to notice me either…" Cally's sentence trailed off and she looked at her blankets sheepishly.

"Is there a small chance he will be able to at least see you?"Gwen asked tentatively.

"A really, really small chance. About the same chances as him noticing that I exist." Cally breathed, looking back at Gwen. "He's only been through the – a really, really small chance." Cally quickly changed what she had been going to say. "Almost non-existent. I think."

The other occupants of the room desperately wanted to know what Cally had been going to say.

"Who are the two investigators?" Cally said, trying to quickly change the subject.

"A Doctor Daniel Jackson and General Jack O'Neill."

Cally's eyes went wide. "Repeat that and please say that you're kidding."

Jack snorted in laughter, but he still looked a little confused. "Err, no?"

The room was then filled with the sound of Cally cursing. She paused only once to add; "We are so, incredibly, screwed."

She refused to elaborate for the next five minutes as the cursing continued, until she tried to get out of bed and was shoved back into it simultaneously by Owen and Martha.

* * *

Once Cally had stopped swearing, Jack told Cally what he'd set up for when Chapman came to talk to Cally. Jack had persuaded (ordered) the nurses to set aside a private waiting room for their use. Cally was also made to be up and dressed in time for Russell's arrival. Cally was quite happy about the up and dressed part, practically hugging the head of Torchwood for his allowing her out of the hospital gown. He would not, however, let her burn the offending hospital garb.

By the time Chapman came through the front door of the hospital, Cally was in the private waiting room practically near to throwing up with nervousness.

"Just have a little tea!" Ianto was trying to get her to drink something, pushing a mug into Cally's hands.

Cally blanched and shoved the mug back into Ianto's hand. "Nooooooo! No! If I drink something, I'll throw up."

"Cally." Gwen took the mug from Ianto and pushed Cally's hands around it. "Drink it."

"No!" Cally shook her head fiercely, face white and lips pursed.

"You're acting like a five year old." Owen said bluntly, watching the exchange from an armchair across the room, a medical journal in his lap.

Cally glared at him, but the jibe had its desired effect. Cally raised the cup to her lips and sipped slightly. Ianto and Gwen grinned in victory.

"I hate you all." Cally grumbled.

That made Owen grin. He liked making other people just as ornery as he was. "We love you too." He retorted.

Cally muttered something unintelligible, possibly cursing medical professionals, and then sipped the tea once more.

Martha stepped in, closely followed by the Doctor who looked extremely bored, until he glanced at Cally and frowned at her nervousness.

"He's here." Martha announced.

Cally froze and nearly dropped the tea. "_Where?_" She asked, panicking and looking past Martha and the Doctor as if expecting to see the man in the doorway.

"Downstairs, Jack's meeting him. We were just supposed to let you know."

"As if I wasn't nervous enough already." Cally moaned, and then gulped the tea down in one fell swoop, trying to get as much energy as she could.

If Chapman couldn't see her, he'd demand to know why he was in a hospital. If he could see her… Cally wasn't sure what she would do if Chapman could see her. He'd be the first person involved in the Stargate program to actually be able to acknowledge her in almost two years.

For some reason that scared her more than Jack being able to arrest her, and she wasn't sure why. Russell was with the IOA, which meant that he'd be in a position to help her.

Cally shook her head and cleared her throat, glancing at Martha and the Doctor. "So." She said hesitantly. "How are we going to do this?"

* * *

Russell was glad to see Jack Harkness waiting for him in the hospital lobby. He wondered vaguely for a moment if the Captain ever wore anything but World War Two era clothing. He shook the thought out of his mind and approached Harkness.

"I take it you talked the nurses around?" Russell said, in lieu of a greeting.

Jack grinned. "I'm good with nurses." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Russell would have been taken in had he not spotted one of the passing nurses thrown a murderous glare in Jack's direction. He grinned for a moment before turning his attention back to the head of Torchwood. "So, where is your mystery soldier?"

"Upstairs." Jack said. "I'm going to have to tell you a few things before you meet her though."

"Oh?"

"This might be a little difficult for you to understand…"

* * *

Between the time Jack had told Cally about Chapman and the time they'd put Cally into the private waiting room, Cally had given Jack a few things that he could say to Russell that might not trigger the odd effect that Cally seemed to have on all things associate with whatever she'd been working on before coming to England.

There was, unfortunately, very little Cally could tell Jack that she was sure would not have an effect on Russell.

"From what we can tell, she was the subject of a lab accident. The effects will either become apparent to you or-"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Russell asked hotly. From the beginning Jack had told him that what he could say was incredibly limited. It didn't make understanding what Jack was trying explain any easier.

Jack shook his head, unable to clarify. "Or they won't and you'll start asking me what you're doing in a hospital. Either you will be able to see her, or you won't."

Russell stared for a moment. This was beginning to sound like either one of them was crazy.

"So, what you are telling me is that this officer had something happen to her, you can't tell me what it is, who she is, or what caused the accident?"

Jack knew he was on thin ice, but he breathed in and said, "Yes."

"You must be joking!" Chapman snarled, his face turning slightly red in anger.

Jack held open the elevator door. "No."

They stepped out of the elevator onto the floor where Cally, unbeknownst to Jack or Russell, was pacing nervously. Russell stormed out of the elevator and stalked over to the nurse's station before realizing that he had no idea where this mystery woman was. He looked at Jack who was standing just outside the elevator with a stance that would have indicated to anyone that Russell was being stupid. Jack raised an eyebrow.

Russell sighed and forced himself to simmer down. "I'll follow your lead then?" He said disparagingly.

Jack beaconed for Russell to follow him. _I wish Cally was that easy to subdue. _Jack thought, and then almost sighed audibly. Something told him that if Cally wasn't so stubborn, she wouldn't be Cally.

By the time Jack and the International Oversight Advisory representative reached the private waiting room, the rest of Torchwood was standing in front of it.

"Russell Chapman, this is my team. Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper."

Russell nodded to them, and only Gwen said hello. Cally's tension had leaked into each of the Torchwood members.

"And this is-" Jack continued.

The Doctor stuck out a hand. "I'm the Doctor, pleasure to meet you! This is Martha Jones."

"Hello." Martha nodded back to Russell.

Russell's eyes had widened when the Doctor had introduced himself, the Doctor was, after all, a legend, but he had more important things to deal with at the moment.

"Good morning." Russell responded, and then turned to Jack and pointed towards the shut door that they had been standing in front of. "Is she-"

Jack nodded. "I'll go in with you first, just to see if the effects we were talking about actually occur. If you can see her, then I'll leave. If not…" Jack wasn't entirely sure about what he would do if Russell wasn't able to be aware of Cally. He rubbed his forehead in unspoken worry. "Anyway." He opened the door and pushed Russell in front of him. "After you."

* * *

When the door opened, Cally's head shot up and she froze in place, too worried about Russell Chapman not being able to see her was the prominent thought in her mind. The only movement she made was an unconscious rubbing of suddenly sweaty palms against the relatively soft fabric of her jeans and the panicked look on her face.

Russell hadn't even stepped in the room yet, and she was sweating like she had been on her first trip through the Stargate. That had been very, very easy compared to this, and her team had been captured that first mission.

Cally vaguely wondered what she would look like to someone who could see her, even partially.

* * *

At first when Russell stepped into the private waiting room, he couldn't see anyone and wondered if the Captain wasn't playing a joke on him. Then he noticed that there was an abnormal amount of tension in the air for a room with no one in it. Jack pushed him further into the room and shut the door behind them.

Then Russell was able to glance around the room while Jack leaned against the wall with a critical eye, watching the proceedings. He looked for a moment at Cally, seeing the apprehension on her face and the panic in her eyes when Russell started looking around the room, apparently unable to see her.

That changed when Russell suddenly gasped.

* * *

He hadn't noticed it at first, when he was glancing around the room to get his bearings. He'd seen the slight haze that had been on one side of a beige couch, but had put it down to a trick of his eyes. The second time he had grazed the room with piercing eyes, the haze had swung into focus, into the shape of a young woman.

Her gaze snapped to his, and in that moment she was as clear as day, her mouth widening into an 'O' of shock, her blue eyes widening.

And then she blurred.

It was like watching a TV where the reception was hard to keep up and the picture was continually being interrupted by the traditional black and white snowy static, only where the static should have been, there was nothing but air.

"My God!" Russell breathed.

"You can see her?" Jack asked in surprise, lifting himself off of the wall and more than pleased with the turn of events.

"I-"Russell started.

"You can see me?" Cally said, her voice wavering and there were tears threatening the corners of her eyes. "Can – can you hear me?"

To Russell's ears, the sound was muted, as if the woman in front of him was speaking through a closed door, and there was at least one word that he hadn't heard, because he could tell that she'd said something, and he'd seen her lips move, but hadn't heard whatever she'd been trying to say.

"Most of it." Russell said shakily. Jack guided the older man to a chair across from Cally. "You're a little…blurry."

"Blurry?" Jack asked, unsure as to what Russell was seeing. He glanced at Cally, then back at the other man. "How do you mean?"

"Like some of her isn't there…"

Jack raised an eyebrow, a little surprised. Cally had always looked perfectly solid to him. Cally looked as if she didn't know whether or not to jump up and down with glee or burst into tears.

"But you can see me?" Cally asked again, as if disbelieving the already confirmed fact. "You can really, really see me?"

"Yes!" Russell breathed, staring at her, as if that would make the constantly flickering figure solidify. "Who are you?"

Cally stood and saluted. "Captain Cally Everet, sir!" Her eyes flickered to Jack, allowing him to read the uncertainty in them which disappeared when she looked back at Russell. "I'm – I'm with the American…Program…sir. From Pegasus."

Russell's eyes widened, he'd seen her lips move and could tell the words she'd said, though he hadn't heard them. Jack however had, and wondered what a constellation had to do with Cally, also resolving to research any alien –based projects the Americans were running.

Cally hesitated, and then asked a third time, because she could barely believe that someone who had gone through the Stargate could actually acknowledge her existence. "Sir? You can really see me?"

Russell nodded and Cally burst into tears.

* * *

Jack had left a few minutes after Cally had calmed down enough to have a sensible conversation with Russell. Russell Chapman was obviously her superior, at least one of them, but indirectly. He'd gone out to tell everyone else the good news – the Museum staff had all gone to wait it out at Cally's apartment. When he'd tried to get back in, one of them had locked the door. He knew better than to ask to be admitted. Whatever Cally was a part of; he wasn't supposed to know - yet.

The Doctor seemed to know the good news when Jack emerged without Russell. "He can see her then?"

Jack nodded once, and then there were smiles of relief all round. "He said that she was…blurry…like she was flickering in and out of view, be he could see her, and hear her."

"That's good!" The Doctor said, and Jack thought that he could have imagined seeing a frown cross the Time Lord's face for a moment. But it was gone so fast that Jack was sure that he imagined it.

What the Doctor had been wondering was how it was that Russell could see Cally if Russell had naquadah in him.

"What do we do now?" Gwen asked.

Jack glanced back at the door behind which Cally and Russell were sequestered. "I think we have to wait."

* * *

An hour later, Russell emerged from the room, closing the door behind him. His face was white, but he had the bearing of a man who had a purpose. The waiting men and women stood up as he walked over to where they had been drinking coffee and telling jokes to relive tension.

"Captain Harkness?" Russell asked, but he was looking at them all. "I think I've learned all I need to know from Captain Everet. She's…I think you should know that she had been through quite a lot before she made it to England. Take in her accident as well as her actions at the Museum; I think she's quite lucky that you found her."

"It was an accident then?" The Doctor asked. "What ever happened to her?"

Russell breathed in slowly and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Oh, most certainly. A very… strange accident, but an accident none the less." He hummed for a moment, musing on what to say. "When can she be released from the hospital?"

"In the next few days." Owen said, "Maybe even tomorrow."

"I've given her permission to Cally to tell you her past, though I think she might have told you regardless. She said she had promised to?"

Tosh nodded. "Yes. After what had happened at the Museum, she said she probably didn't have a choice."

Russell smiled. "Well, at least you all work for Torchwood or are-" He nodded to the Doctor and to Martha. "Well acquainted with life beyond the planet."

"Some of us more than others." Jack and the Doctor said simultaneously. They grinned at one another.

"I don't." Martha pointed out.

"But you are a Doctor's companion." Russell said with a quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "That is almost diplomatic immunity anywhere, on this planet or any other."

They all looked at the Doctor. The Doctor looked smugly back at them.

Russell coughed in laughter and then got back to business. "The people from the museum will have to sign waivers. I know Torchwood does not have them."

Jack raised an eyebrow. So this man knew about Retcon.

"I can give you some." Russell continued. "Which I will need back after Cally tells you all what was going on."

Jack nodded. "We can agree to that."

"After Cally talks to you, send her to me. She can't stay as an intern, as much as I think she wants to. I need to talk to her about her future, later."

"Yeah, she'll talk about it later." Jack said. He didn't like how Russell made it sound like the Museum was beneath her. Cally liked working there, even though she got bored.

Russell nodded. "Alright. Well then, I need to be going, to make sure that the two investigators don't get too far. Be careful with her. At this point in time, Cally is very, very important."

They said their goodbyes, and Russell left. They filed into the room where Cally was still sitting.

Cally was asleep, wiped out from the interrogation Chapman had given her.

* * *

At nine am, an hour before Cally's talk with the IOA representative, Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson were starting their first full day of investigation. Sort of.

"Hey Jack?" Daniel asked over breakfast at the hotel.

"Uh huh?" Jack was far more interested in his newspaper than early morning conversation. They'd discovered the hard way that gate lag had no effect on jet lag.

"Can we go to the British Museum at some point?"

Jack looked up from his newspaper, mouth curling into a smile. "Don't you get enough of that stuff off-world?"

Daniel looked pleading. "Jaaack!" He whined.

Jack chuckled. "Fine, fine. We'll go! I'll be hiding behind a pillar."

Daniel grinned. "They do have shiny things in the gift shop, you know."

Jack grinned this time. "Why does everyone think I'm attracted to shiny things?"

"Because you are. Every time Sam has something shiny in her lab, you can't help but touch it."

"Can I help it if the doohickeys are fun to play with?"

That got a larger laugh from Daniel, startling some tourists a few tables away. "I'll even _buy_ you something shiny if it keeps you away from my artifacts."

"No deal. If I can't come bother you when Sam kicks me out of her lab, I'll have nowhere to go!" Jack tried to look at his best friend imploringly.

Daniel laughed harder. When he'd calmed down, Jack sighed. "I'm guessing since the trip will be inevitable, we'll go. But I want to go see something too!"

"If I agree without knowing what it's going to be, I'm going to be in trouble aren't I?"

"Probably."

Daniel sighed. "Fine. We can do something you want to do too."

Jack had a grin on his face for the rest of the day.

* * *

On the pavement a block away from the hospital there was a post box. Russell had taken the Underground to get to the hospital and had passed it on his way from the station. He stopped beside it and regarded the medium-sized bundle of envelopes in his hand that Cally had told him was in her hospital room. He'd retrieved them before leaving the hospital altogether.

Cally hadn't told him what was in the envelopes, but each was addressed to the Cheyenne Mountain base. He had no doubt that the letters within the envelopes were addressed to Atlantis. She had told him that they were designed to get the attention of the Atlantis staff, should they ever remember her existence.

The fact that he'd been able to acknowledge her existence had given her back a sliver of hope that much he'd seen in her face during their interview. The device that she'd fallen prey to worried him, though she'd gone through great pains to keep the rest of Atlantis from messing with it before more damage could be done.

The fact that Menthu had come from inside the Museum and through the artifacts had concerned them both. Menthu could have been a force to be reckoned with, had Cally – assisted by Torchwood – had not stopped him. It could happen again. Her suggestion of an artifact screening process for museums had a great deal of merit. He'd have to visit the museum itself later to see how much Goa'uld property Menthu had been able to collect from the archives alone.

One of the envelopes looked like it had been pieced together from a doctor's prescription pad, which made him smile. Cally had said that she'd been getting bored. This was definitely evidence of that. She would not remain that way for long. Russell had no idea that his sentiment echoed the one that had prompted Myles to make Cally a Museum intern.

Russell tipped the letters into the post box and kept walking. He had calls to make regarding a female Air Force Captain.

* * *

The fact that the Atlantis mailbag was sixty two letters heavier than normal went unnoticed by all but the airman who had to carry it.

* * *

End Episode 20

Thank you to Aria Deloncray and Ianira Ianthe for the reviews!

All reviews, flames, suggestions and such are joyfully accepted!


	21. Redecorating and Explanations Gone Awry

Author's Note: For Disclaimer, see previous chapters.

Author's Note Part Two: Sorry for the … 3 month delay in chapterness. School kinda gets in the way…

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Episode 21: Redecorating and Explanations Gone Awry

Two days after Russell Chapman's visit, Cally and Katie linked arms and with very wide grins, took their first steps out into the freedom that existed beyond the spotless walls of the hospital. Cally immediately grabbed Katie upon crossing that threshold and twirled her around, making Gwen laugh. Cally then repeated the process with Gwen. "We're _freeeeeee_!" Cally screamed when she let Gwen go, startling quite a few passersby.

Gwen laughed again. "I don't think that I've ever seen anyone that happy to leave a hospital!"

"I don't mind hospitals." Cally said with a smile. "I just hate staying in them."

"I never would have guessed." Katie returned dryly. "Where are we going?"

"To Cally's apartment." Gwen answered. "Everyone else is going to be there. Err, Cally. Myles told his wife what happened. She will be there as well."

Cally raised her eyebrows in surprise and then sighed. "She wanted to know what happened to Ian, I'm guessing."

Gwen nodded. "Everyone who has sign a non-disclosure form has already done so with the exception of Katie, so whenever you explain to us what was going on, we'll all be legally allowed to hear it."

Cally grinned. "Well, at least that's taken care of." Telling them about the Stargate would be interesting, to say the least.

After a few moments of peaceful silence, Ianto pulled up with a rental car; Jack had drawn the line in letting Cally in the company car. His reasons were simple- he suspected that she might be able to figure out what the various gadgets in the car did, and preferred that he not give Cally the opportunity to accidentally blow up the car.

Cally all but had her nose up against the backseat window of the car. It was so _good_ to see London first hand again. The hospital window hadn't done the city justice. She'd been in London for a long time now, and while she still thought of Atlantis as home, London was quickly replacing Atlantis. _Is it possible to have them both remain my home? _ She wondered briefly, then bit her lip. She just hoped that after her explanations, London would still be a place where she could find sanctuary from the hassle of life.

After a while, you got tired of moving.

Beside her, Katie's only thoughts were on the state of Cally's apartment. When Matthew had visited at one point, he'd mentioned in passing that they were redecorating Cally's apartment. She'd given them free license to do whatever they had to, so that they could get comfortable. Cally wouldn't know what hit her.

Victoria, Myles' wife, had apparently sobbed when she'd been told that Ian was dead. It was harder to explain to her what had happened at the Museum. After the haphazard explanation that had simply confused her further, they stopped, knowing that only Cally held all the pieces to the puzzle.

_Do I really want to know everything, have all this explained, knowing I might not like the answer? _Katie mused for a long moment. She turned to look at the back of Cally's head, studying her friend who had been through things Katie couldn't even imagine. _Yeah…I guess I do want to know. _Turning her face back to the window on her side of the car, Katie copied Cally, and watched the scenery go by.

* * *

Cally stood in front of her apartment door nervously, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She'd have to face facts in there, have to spill everything and trace back over every detail. Her sigh was heavy, and she reached into the pocket of her pants. There was a pause, and she began to frantically pat down her pockets. Feeling utterly foolish, she turned to those behind her and said in an embarrassed tone, "Ummmm….I don't have a key to my own apartment…"

Ianto bit back a laugh. "But there are people inside who can open the door." He pointed out.

Cally glared. "I knew that."

Katie and Gwen grinned behind her.

"If I wasn't so hopped up on meds," Cally muttered under her breath as she knocked on her own door. "I would have remembered that."

The door was instantly opened to reveal Jack's smiling face. "Sorry, no soliciting."

Cally raised an eyebrow. "I happen to be a very good sales woman. Are you interested in an apartment? You've apparently made yourself at home in it already."

"The owner said it was ok!" Jack mock pleaded.

Cally burst out laughing. "Are you going to let me into my own apartment or what?"

Jack whipped open the door wider, stood to one side and preformed a sweeping bow. "Welcome home my lady!"

Cally snorted and stepped through the threshold, heart hammering at an unreasonable rate. "Why thank you, kind sir!" Gwen and Ianto hid laughter behind their hands. Katie couldn't stop a few giggles as she walked in behind Cally.

Cally only made it to the living room before seeing that everyone was there, waiting for her. Before she could even say anything, Owen snagged her arm and demanded that he be allowed to examine her.

""Owen!" Cally protested. "I was just at the hospital. Where they treated my wounds? Under your supervision too! The doctors -"

"Can go stuff themselves." Owen said, touching her shoulder, "I was only supervising them the first time. _I _want to see what damage _they _caused the rest of the time."

Cally rolled her eyes, but submitted to the inevitable. However as they passed, Gwen could have sworn that Cally muttered, "Channeling Dr. Beckett, I swear!" before allowing Owen led her to her spare bedroom so he could examine her injuries.

Matthew tried to hide a smile when they came back after ten minutes. Cally quickly noted that he was looking better. The large bruise on his forehead was still a deep purple, but the swelling seemed to have gone down somewhat. His calm face frightened her a little. He, like the other interns, had been given some time to come to grips with what had happened – though they hadn't had any answers yet. Cally didn't know what they would do then.

Cally soon learned that the Torchwood team – whatever Torchwood was – had told the interns what had happened before their rescue. Part of Matthew couldn't believe it their words, not when Cally was standing there in front of him, looking hardly any different. The concept that he had the most trouble believing was that Cally had been fighting – that Cally had killed. It seemed just as surreal as seeing Dr. Treblo – whatever had been in Dr. Treblo – forcing them to kneel, and almost killing Katie. However he'd seen it all, and knew at this point that anything was possible.

Even if he sometimes found himself wishing that it really, really wasn't.

He'd known that Cally used to be in the Air Force, but this had to go beyond that. Mean guys with glowing eyes, those crazy weapons…everything was so confusing. He'd heard Cally had claimed that the box had been a bomb, and then that not only had it really had been one, but that she'd known how to stop that…thing. Whatever had been in Ian. To top it all off, she'd apparently had blown up some sort of ship over London. That part he could believe. The image of the explosion had been on the news, but they had called it a satellite crash.

Captain Harkness had told them, that Cally had said that they could do what they wanted to her apartment, to make themselves more comfortable. Owen agreed, to the idea, as if it was a sort of therapy.

The result – she could see as she walked with Owen – was certainly interesting.

One or two of the survivors from the Museum wouldn't meet her eyes, either from laughing or from fear that she'd yell at them.

Myles was the first one she'd raised an eyebrow at when she saw an Egyptian mosaic with the Eye of Ra in the middle, replacing the old tiles on her kitchen floor.

One of her living room walls was inexplicably apple green – her ceiling blue with painted clouds. Someone – she suspected the interns – had taken the information from Cally's 'battle' with Menthu and had depicted it tapestry- style down the walls of her hallway.

Tosh had apparently been deconstructing the Jaffa staff weapon, and Gwen helping Ianto reorganize the entire kitchen.

The Doctor had also apparently been having fun with her computer. From a quick glance Cally was definitely sure that it wasn't running Windows anymore – she'd never before seen the symbols that were gently drifting across the screen.

When Owen finally led her back into the people –filled area, Cally was standing by herself in the center of her kitchen, standing on the Eye of Ra, in the center of attention.

"Well, um. The decorations… I like them. They're very good and, um…interesting." She said nervously. "I don't think I'm quite as heroic as the nice fresco portrays me, though."

Matthew grinned. "We don't know that. We didn't see the battle."

Cally looked at her shoes. "It wasn't all that special. I've been in firefights before."

"With men with glowing eyes and their foot soldiers?" Tosh asked incredulously.

They all stared at her when Cally kept staring at her shoes. They were a green pair of the same shoes that the Doctor was wearing, and Cally pretended to be extremely interested in them. They weren't hers, and she wondered who had given them too her. The Doctor was a good bet.

"So…" Cally said, looking up, but looking at a spot at the wall past Ianto's right ear. She was too scared to look at their faces, and proceeded to twist her fingers together. "I owe an explanation, I think."

There was a moment's mute silence before Jack responded for them all. "Yeah…we think so to." He said quietly, with a bare touch of humor. The words drifted into the silent apartment and stuck their awkwardly, failing to give rise to a laugh.

Cally got up her courage and looked around at the faces of each person in the room. There was a mixture of curiosity, mistrust and deadpan blankness on their faces. There wasn't any animosity there, which relieved her, because it was what she had most feared that she would see.

"Where do you want to begin?" Gwen asked as if she was taking a police statement, face covered by a thin veneer that was probably the face she had showed to those involved in crimes.

Cally sighed, rubbing her bad arm. "I – well – I'm not exactly sure. There's so much to tell, if I forget something… It could get complicated."

"How complicated could it be?" Owen asked sarcastically, losing his patience and scowling darkly. They had waited a long time for an explanation.

Cally's eyes met his and ice crept into his bones, "I only met you a few days ago Owen, so forgive me if I don't know if this is what you're like all the time." The words dripped from her mouth like bitter poison. She wrapped her arms around herself, looking down, feeling guilty even as she said with absolute conviction, "But I am still a member of the United States Air Force, however remotely, and by telling you _any of this_, waivers or no wavers, I still feel like I'm committing treason." She paused for a moment, letting it sink in. "I don't exactly do that every day. Do you do it that often that it comes easy to you?"

Owen had gone pale with a hint of restrained fury hovering around his features, as did Tosh, Ianto, Gwen and Martha; they risked their lives every day for the sake of their country. Jack, on the other hand, had a look of cool calculation and a strange soft sympathy on his face, while the Doctor's face showed absolutely nothing. The interns were wide-eyed, the pupils of their eyes shrinking at the tone of Cally's voice. Even after the go-ahead from Chapman, Cally was still taking this hard. Most of the Stargate personnel _never _got permission to tell anybody what they did for a living. Saying what she had to was going to take a toll on her, and had been weighing heavy on Cally's mind.

Cally closed her eyes and shook her head, but the pain in her voice was evident. "Well, for starters, I was telling a half – truth when I said I was on suspended duty." She opened her eyes enough to see the accusation on Jack's face. "I'm not absent without leave, not exactly. Believe me, I'm not that stupid. But…" She struggled to find the right words, and looked so upset that the policewoman in Gwen wanted to make her sit down and breath until she could speak calmly, but Cally swore vehemently in what had to be at least three languages before Gwen could move before running a hand through her hair. "Dammit! That answer is complicated too!" She looked back up at them, an strangely ordinary mulishness about her face. "I suppose, there's no way around it. I have to tell you the whole friggin back story."

Her eyes caught Myles' concerned ones. "You – might not like to hear everything I have to say, but I figure, you've - been through enough…"

"Cally-" Myles took a hesitant breath, and then spoke. He was still shaken over Ian's death. "That thing – in Ian- what was it?"

Cally's breath caught and she let it out slowly. "Myles – you won't like the answer."

"I know." He said. "But I would like to know. It called itself after an ancient Egyptian god."

Cally sighed and ran a hand over her face. "That's because it was one." They all looked at her sharply in disbelief. "Rather, something styling itself as one." She looked back at them, regretting moving to London and getting into this mess. "They are called Goa'uld."

"You mentioned them at the Museum." Jack said. "I'm not sure what they are."

The Doctor nodded, though he remembered exactly what they were, lips thinning. He wasn't pleased.

Cally looked at Martha. "In my desk drawer, there is a large blue photo album, and a paper bag, would you mind getting them for me?"

Martha nodded and ventured into the other room, and came back moments later, handing the bag to Cally, but holding onto the album. It was far too large for Cally to hold onto comfortably.

Cally turned towards the apartment door. "Come on then."

"Where exactly are we going?" Jack asked.

"A pub where we can talk privately." Cally said, though she looked like she was about to fall flat on her feet. "Also because after I finish, I suspect we're all going to need one, if not more, very stiff drinks."

"You're on pain meds." Owen said in warning.

"Then I won't have anything stronger than orange juice." Cally snapped in irritation, her jaw setting as she clenched her teeth firmly. "Are we going or not?"

* * *

The only place Cally really knew to take them to was the pub where she sang. She was automatically given a back room, with a no entrance for people other than those with her, and a waitress. This was all good, because they'd be talking about something extremely classified. After they'd ordered, Martha placed the photo album in front of Cally's glass of orange juice. She would have let the waitress slip her something a little stronger, but pain medication and alcohol did not mix, and Owen was watching Cally intently.

Cally fingered a corner of the album. She tried to appear as if she didn't feel like the world was crashing down around her. She'd enjoyed the months where she'd been as carefree as a bird, walking around London, working those first few weeks at the Museum, where she could forget that she wasn't going through the Stargate every week and that the people she worked with, the people she trusted beyond anything, didn't know that she walked with them.

She'd seriously considered, while lying in her hospital bed, running from Torchwood when she'd gone to get snacks. Her promise had been the only thing holding her back, and the damage she'd inflicted on the staff. The weariness that had settled on her while she'd been running around trying to figure out how to stop Menthu, combined, the effects of the Ancient device and the stress Menthu had caused had begun to wear her down.

No matter what happened, Cally wasn't fully sure that she'd rejoin the Air Force, if and when the device's effects wore off. Atlantis wasn't fully her home anymore. The people here were just as much a family to her as SGA – 6 back on Atlantis. She could become a security consultant, plenty of ex-military people did that, but somehow Cally felt like the job wouldn't fit her.

Going back to Atlantis, in that hopeful someday where the device stopped working, still felt ideal but there was a new fear for her. The Wraith didn't scare her much, but the prospect of lab accidents was now downright terrifying; on Atlantis, where new, unknown technology was waiting around every corner, this wasn't exactly a fear that could be contained or limited. Even the idea of finding technology offworld had sent Cally into sweats in the middle of the night more than once.

Cally suddenly realized that she'd been quiet for some time and tried to remedy that. Not looking at the others at the table – she'd been seated at one of the ends of the booth she'd picked out, opposite the Doctor and next to Martha – Cally spoke. "I know this will be a very stupid question for some of you, but – how much exactly do you know about the ancient Egypt?"

Myles and the interns looked surprised. "We know quite a bit, but…" He looked at those who were not academics, and most shook their heads.

The Doctor merely gave a half smile. "I know perhaps the same amount as Myles." Perhaps a bit more, the Doctor rationalized, considering that he'd been to Ancient Egypt a few times, though never when the Goa'uld ruled. He'd disliked that part of Earth's history, and had never gone there by choice.

"Right." Cally said. "That will make it a little easier for those of you who don't know a ton about ancient Egypt." She breathed out heavily. "Though not much for those of you who do. We're probably going to get into a shouting match before this is over."

Looking down at her juice, Cally missed the looks of confusion everyone but the Doctor gave her.

After a sip of the orange juice, Cally continued. "Myles, everyone, I know that this will be a little hard for you, but I want you to take what you know about ancient Egypt and just…forget it. Don't think about it, pretend that you don't know anything, because when I start telling you the back story, like I said, you're going to either want to yell at me, argue with me, or laugh your head off and call for a padded truck."

Slowly, unsure what to expect, they all agreed.

Cally bit her lip. Part of her was screaming for her not to say anything, if only to keep her sanity. But people had gotten hurt, and she'd pointed weapons at civilians, people who had ended up saving her life. She owed them the explanation.

"Ok." Cally pushed her drink around the table. "Onward then." She looked out the window, at the stars peeking through the clouds. After a moment she began. "I guess I should begin by saying that we are not exactly alone in the universe."

The Doctor was completely serious in his responding exclamation. "Well, of course not! Where have you been?" Martha, trying to be as discrete as possible, started trying to kick him in the shins to shut him up.

Cally blinked, and then grinned, mistakenly believing that he was kidding. "Lost in the Pegasus galaxy."

Jack blinked. "What?" This, he had not expected. Even though Cally had mentioned the word Pegasus when she had been talking to Chapman, as if it was a location, not an astronomical term, it hadn't occurred to Jack to actually _believe_ that it was. He, the Museum employees and his team stared while the Doctor kept talking. Martha was trying to shut him up by kicking him under the table. It wasn't working.

"Pegasus Galaxy...Pegasus Galaxy...no, I don't think I've been. What are the main life forms?" The Doctor asked, putting a hand under his chin and propping his arm up on the table, while looking pensive.

It was a valid, if surprising question. Cally wasn't sure if she should laugh or not, the feeling that he was kidding beginning to vanish, but she went with it and shrugged. "Space vampires." She said simply.

Martha stopped trying to kick the Doctor, and like everyone else, was staring at the two in disbelief.

"That's their species." Cally tried to clarify. "Just saying life forms is...vague. Well, vague and useful. Well, vague and useful but not altogether easy to answer." Cally finished. "There are a ton of life forms." She sounded a little like the Doctor with his circular logic.

The Doctor furrowed his brow at the answer, when another question popped into his head. "Now here's another question. I doubt they call themselves space vampires- what do they call themselves?. It might jog my memory. I can't remember hearing anything about space vampires, and there are plenty of species that could fit that description."

Cally was embarrassed, but a little intrigued in spite of herself. The Doctor sounded like he'd known other alien species. "Err, they call themselves the Wraith. We usually call them – well, ugly, life sucking bastards. Or Bob. Sometimes Steve."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side. "Wraith…wraith…Wait for it! Ringing some vague and very useful bells here." He paused and looked at her questioningly. "Steve?"

"I don't name the Wraith prisoners!" Cally responded, smiling slightly. "It's my commanding officer's fault, really. He names them…with surprising and startling regularity."

"Right then!" The Doctor looked relieved for some reason. Humans had odd notions. Cally seemed more sensible then most. "What do these Wraiths do?"

"For the most part, cull their human herds when they get hungry." Cally responded, not noticing that at her statement, everyone but the Doctor suddenly looked very, very disturbed. Her conversation with the Doctor was starting to feel a little surreal and unlikely. He was…acting if this was all normal. The rest of those involved were amazed that she was taking this as normal as well.

"Ah." The Doctor said, curiosity stated for a moment. "That's … self –explanatory."

Cally smiled thinly, bitterly. "Yeah, it kind of is."

"Err." Gwen interjected, voicing the thoughts of everyone present. "Not really. At least, not for us, the uninitiated."

Cally and the Doctor blinked at the others, as if just realizing that they were still there.

Cally looked a little ashamed. "Ah, I think we got off topic before we even really began…"

"Yeah." Said Katie. "So…aliens?"

Cally blinked. "Life outside Earth…yeah. Aliens."

"And the Pegasus Galaxy." Jack asked, voice indicating his surprise. "Where you've apparently been living?"

"Where have you been living there?" The Doctor asked. "The only place to live there away from the Wraith would be - Ah! Yes!" The Doctor interjected again."What year would it be in Atlantis now?" The Doctor then shook his head. "No, its better you don't answer."

Cally blinked, and then angrily snapped at him in shock. "How the _hell_ do you know about Atlantis?" Something was very, very off here.

"Atlantis?" Jack asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I just want to know!" The Doctor glared at both of them for interrupting. "Spoilers, you see. When you've lived as long as I do, memories don't always stay within the same time line. But you linear humans...well, even details are sometimes enough to remember certain things." He turned back to Cally, who was glaring at him in suspicion. "Sorry, then. Pretend I never said anything. Wait..."The Doctor realized something at the end of his rambling. He turned to Martha, whose head was buried in her hands, looking as though she either wanted to beat him or laugh herself sick. "At the very beginning, when she said that there were other life forms, I was supposed to pretend I didn't know, right? And let things proceed at their own pace? Well, blew that one. Let's continue from where we left off shall we..."

Cally felt something shaking beside her and looked at Jack. He was trying, very unsuccessfully to hold in laughter at the Doctor's mistake. She wasn't sure if it was because of Jack's reaction or because of the Doctor's responses, but Cally was suddenly very, very angry. "You bastards! You're absolute bloody bastards, all of you!" She wrenched herself into a standing position, and was now yelling at the Doctor, Martha and Jack. She was yelling at everyone at the table, with the exception of the interns and Myles, who looked as confused as she did. Martha at least looked apologetic. "You're either humoring me, or you really know that-" The realization hit her like a literal ton of bricks.

Especially devastating was the part where the Doctor had said something like '_you_ humans'.

"Oh crap." She moaned, before dropping to the ground in a dead faint.

End Chapter 21

* * *

All Reviews, Flames etc, accepted.

Thank you to Everyone who has already reviewed! I really appreciate it.

Thank you also to Rusting Roses, who puts up with me.


	22. Aliens Provide Joyrides

Sorry for the long wait everyone! I have had a ton to do over the last few months, but here is the next chapter! I tried to de-borify it, so I hope it's at least interesting!

Disclaimer: If I owned the franchise, I'd be rich. But I don't, so… you can guess the rest. (Alternatively, if there really was a Stargate program, do you really think I'd still be on this planet?)

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 22: Interesting fact! Aliens provide joyrides.

There was a silent pause for a moment, in which no one reacted.

Then the Doctor said, barely audible. "Aren't you humans supposed to do what when they find out that there really are aliens, and not when they find out that others know too?"

And then the world rushed back to a facsimile of reality.

Martha stood quickly. "Move, all of you. Let me check her."

"Um…" Matthew said, speaking for the interns, plus a dazed Myles and his wife. "Could someone clue us in to what's going on here, exactly?"

Martha completely ignored him, shoving him back. "I'm a doctor. Almost. And a proper doctor to boot, unlike some people in our company."

"Oi!" The Doctor looked mildly affronted. "I am a doctor! Sort of."

"Sort of? I'd love to see you in the seventh hour of your oral exam, sweating it out and ready to plead for it just to be done and over with." Martha's voice was unusually acerbic as she concentrated on her patient. "Pupil's look normal, no unusual concussive marks," Martha reported while carefully feeling the back of Cally's head. "She'll have a nice lump when she wakes up, though."

Jack took off his coat and handed it to Martha, who wadded it under Cally's head, then returned to the table. They watched her unmoving form for a moment.

The Doctor smiled disarmingly at the very suddenly very wary museum staff. "I think some things need to be explained."

"Do you really think so?" Owen snarled, annoyed.

Myles and the interns looked at one another, then at the Doctor, and agreed whole heartedly with Owen's statement.

* * *

Cally came to after a few minutes, and was still lying on the floor. Luckily there was something cushioning her head. She could hear the sound of familiar voices arguing.

"What would aliens have to do with Ancient Egypt?" Myles sounded cross. Cally could imagine him crossing his arms over his chest.

"I don't know!" Jack replied in the same tone. "All I know is that a thing called a Goa'uld was inside Ian and it liked ancient Egyptian artifacts!"

"Why don't we just wait for Cally to wake up so that she can explain to us?" The Doctor said softly.

"Yes." Cally said softly, but just loud enough that they all could hear her. "But why don't we help Cally off the floor first?" There was slight disgust in her voice as she continued, "This rather grimy, clearly unhygienic floor of dubious history."

"Speaking about yourself in the third person is a sign of madness, you know." Owen tactfully informed her as Martha quickly slipped out of her seat to help Cally to her feet.

Cally picked up Jack's rolled up coat as she stood, thanked Martha for helping her, shook the coat out and gently handed it back to the Captain. "I just started talking to you about aliens and the city of Atlantis. Maybe crazy is the right way to be at this point." She rubbed the back of her head and grimaced. Fainting _hurt_ and she didn't mean to do it again.

"But you're not crazy." Matthew pointed out. "And neither are we."

Cally cracked a smile. "That's debatable Matthew. Shove over; I want to rejoin the table."

Once Cally was settled again she took a good look at the Doctor, who seemed to know what she was looking for.

"I'm humanoid." He said. "Not human, and definitely not born on Earth, but I look it."

Cally nodded. "I've met species like that. Few that didn't originate from Earth, I'll admit, but there are a few out there. If you don't mind my asking…"

"What species I am?" The Doctor hesitated, and then sighed. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell you." He glared at Torchwood and the Museum staff. "My name is not Doctor Smith, it's just the Doctor –"He was interrupted by a few gasps by the more knowledgeable members of Torchwood who were silenced by a glare from Jack. "I'm a Time Lord."

Cally raised an eyebrow at the lofty proclamation, and then shook her head. "Sorry, I'm not familiar with that particular species. I don't know what a Time Lord is, though the title is nearly self explanatory, I think. I'm glad to have met you."

The Doctor's smile flashed pure mega wattage. "And I you, at the risk of sounding mushy. Oh, and I can't control time, I just travel in it."

Both of Cally's eyebrows rose this time. "Good to know!"

"Err…" Gwen said. The topic had drifted since before Cally had fainted and had not regained its original track.

Cally got the hint. "Alright! Alright! Back on topic then. Instead of trying to explain about the historical background, I suppose I should start about how I got into fighting with men with glowing eyes."

"The historical background-" Myles began, wanting to know immediately about how the Egyptian angle came in, only to be cut off by Cally.

"I'll explain that as I go." Cally said gently. "It won't make any sense otherwise."

Myles nodded his assent for Cally to proceed.

Cally looked back at her now warm juice. "Around seven years ago, I was fresh out of the academy, stationed at a completely normal base on the west coast of the States. I'm not going to say where. One morning my unit and I were sent to assist a group of Air Force officers in dealing with an unidentified threat in a forest near the coast. We weren't told what the threat was, just that we'd know it when we saw it."

"Very helpful." Ianto said snidely.

Cally rolled her eyes. "Believe me; we were all thinking the same thing."

"But it became apparent?" Gwen asked. She'd responded to emergency calls as a police officer, but this was probably much different.

Cally snorted in laughter at a joke she then shared. "Within the first fifteen minutes. We – my unit and I – were split up to partner with people from another base who apparently knew what we were facing. The Captain I was with- I was a sergeant at the time- lead us deep into the woods. We were supposed to be looking for two things. I had no idea what either of them was, but my captain seemed to. In those first fifteen minutes we stumbled upon a giant metal thing that had apparently crash landed nose first into the forest floor."

"A plane?" Katie asked.

Cally shook her head. "Nope. Didn't even look like one. I mean, it had wings, but it looked like someone had tried to make a giant glider, but tried to stick people in it, but made the whole thing big, shiny, and aluminum colored. There were markings all around the side, and I had no idea what they meant."

"Ah." Jack snorted. "Roswell."

Cally looked at him and burst out laughing. "Roswell! Ha! Yeah, could have been! But it was in the wrong part of the country for that, wrong era too. The whole experience was close enough to whatever happened at Roswell. My partner radioed in about it and said we'd found a 'death glider'. I kept asking questions, but he would answer nothing."

"Then it was need to know." Jack shrugged. "So?"

Cally nodded. "Yes, and up until then it was. The next moment, everything changed. There was a loud yell in a language I'd never heard before, both of us turned around, and then we were under fire. It was nothing I'd never seen before. There were no bullets either. I thought the stuff that was coming at us was light, except whatever it hit burnt, exploded or smoldered."

"Energy weapons." The Doctor said flatly.

"Yeah." Cally said. "Exactly like the staff weapon I was using in the Museum. My assigned partner yelled and pushed me down behind a log, and he vaulted after me the moment after. He then yelled that we were under fire into his radio and returned fire. It was then I got a good look at whatever it was that was shooting at us. It was a man, at least, I thought that it was a man, but it was wearing weird armor, and the weapon it was firing at us was not a gun."

Realization dawned on Martha's face. "A Jaffa?" She asked.

"Correct in one!" Cally grinned at the medical student. "My first alien encounter, so to speak. I was too frozen in shock to move. I didn't know what was going on, but I realized that he was trying to kill us and started shooting at it. If it had been the only Jaffa there, it might have turned into a very short firefight. It wasn't though, and twenty seconds later, my partner had been shot in the back. The staff blast had gone straight through his gear and hit his back. He shouted, slumped foreword and suddenly I was all alone with two very angry aliens." Cally paused for a moment remembering.

_Captain Sabin yelped in pain and there was the smell of charred, smoking flesh, then he slumped forward onto the log. _

_Cally whipped around heart beating wildly, scanning the area for the second assailant, but couldn't see anyone. There was the sound of heavy boots crunching on sticks and she whipped around again to shoot at the first man. He was close enough now that she couldn't miss. The bullets smacked repeatedly into his weird armor, and he fell to the ground with a dull thud. There was the small, sickening feeling of victory and relief, but it didn't last for more than a second. _

_The shots from behind started again, and the freshly trained sergeant realized that if she and the Captain were going to live, she had to act. First, she scrambled over the log to safety, and then as carefully as she could while keeping her head down, she laboriously pulled Sabin over the log. He was still unconscious, slumped next to her like a bag of raw potatoes. The shots never relented, and she fired back blindly, unsure of where the shots were coming from. As a result her panicked shots were going wide. _

_Sabin's radio crackled, making her jump. _

"_Captain? What's your status?"_

_A blast of light hummed past her ear. Breathing erratically, she reached for where the captain's radio would be at the same time as trying to keep an eye out for the enemy._

"_H-Hello?" She spoke into the radio, voice quavering in a distinctly un-military fashion. "Captain Sabin is down, sir. This is Sergeant Everet. One of the … assailants is hit, I think I killed him. We're pinned down by enemy fire and the captain requires medical attention." She tried to report in the official manner, but she had to consciously concentrate on what she was saying._

"_Copy that." The radio crackled. "We're about a minute out from your position sergeant, can you hold down the fort until we get there?" _

_She looked down at the unresponsive captain, and then scanned the woods. The fire had ebbed for a moment, and that was worrying. She gulped, and then replied. "Yes sir." She added "I'd better," after she had let go of the talk button. _

_She scanned the forest for movement as she clutched the radio and her service weapon, but she could have been looking for a needle in a haystack. It was odd what battle did to you, every sense was on the alert and there was so much sensory information coming it, demanding to be paid attention to that she wasn't sure if a stick was one of the staff – weapon things or not. _

_There was a slight movement about four yards away from the log, to her left and she shot a few rounds in that direction, cursing afterwards because it had probably been a distraction. She should have been trying to find safe ground. Casting a glance around the clearing that had been made by the 'death glider' she saw that the only other cover she could use was the wing of the glider itself. Getting herself to it would be one thing, dragging an injured man there too was going to be impossible. _

_A pain blossomed on her left side. She hadn't noticed the figure sneaking up behind her, and hadn't noticed him smile, raise his weapon until it had gone off. She turned slowly to face the tall, bulky and bald warrior behind her in the daze that the pain had brought. She stared upright at it, and then realized that another had stepped out of the tree line behind him. There had been three. The certainty that she was going to die settled into her heart as the second man raised his weapon and pointed it at her and the captain. _

_The last thing she remembered before joining Sabin in unconsciousness was the sound of bullets hitting metal._

"We were saved at the last minute." Cally continued, shaking her head to dispel the memory. "Another team got there just as the Jaffa was going to kill us. Lucky for both of us, actually, since Jaffa aren't exactly known for mercy."

"Then what happened?" Matthew asked, entranced by the story as much as the rest of the table was.

Cally shrugged. "When I came to, I was in the infirmary of Captain Sabin's base. There was another Captain waiting by my bed."

_Cally's eyes opened slowly, feeling heavy. She knew that she must be on pain meds, because there was a faintly metallic taste on her tongue. Her left side felt like there was heavy bandages wrapped around it, and her whole body felt like lead. _

_She moaned and tried to get her eyes to focus on the concrete ceiling above her. There was the beeping of a heart monitor from somewhere to her right. A blurry looking movement on her left momentarily distracted her from the smell of burn ointment that lingered in the air and a male face swung into view. It was longish, tanned and fairly rugged, with slim cheeks, a well –defined stubborn mouth and piercing gray eyes framed by a mop of brown hair. _

"_Hi there." He said, and she noted that his voice was warm, but gravelly. _

"_Sir." She said, in lieu of a salute. "What happened?" She croaked._

_He smiled down at her. "You were hit sergeant; we managed to get to your position before you were killed."_

"_Thank you, sir." She said. She was extremely grateful not to have died. She hadn't wanted to die without knowing what had happened out there. _

_He nodded. "My name is Captain Tom Kerry. You saved Captain Sabin; he's a buddy of mine."_

"_Sergeant Cally Everet sir." She replied, not sure how to take the comment. "I was just doing my job, sir." _

_Kerry grinned at that. "Yeah, but you still saved him, and that's pretty good for a first time going up against a Jaffa."_

_She felt her forehead and eyebrows scrunch together as she became confused. "Sir, isn't Jaffa a brand of fruit juice?"_

_Captain Kerry pulled away slightly and started to laugh, then had to try and smother it as he was shushed by one of the doctors. "Ha, uh, I suppose it is. But it's also the name of a species of alien."He said, amused. _

_It must have been the pain meds, but he looked a lot friendlier when he laughed. But…"Sir, not to be insubordinate, but I think I may be under too many pain meds."_

"_Why's that, sergeant?"_

"_You just said that a Jaffa was an alien, sir. Aliens don't exist."_

"_Before I answer that," Kerry said, and to her he appeared to become serious. "How do you like your current posting?" _

_Cautiously she responded. "It's my first assignment sir. I can't complain." _

_He smiled softly. "But you're not in love with it? The truth now, and that's an order."_

"_Ah, um, no sir, I can't say that I'm in love with it sir." She answered honestly. _

"_Good enough for me." He nodded. "Because I'm requesting to have you transferred to this base, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs."_

"_Sir?"_

"_I'm about to give you the standard welcoming speech sergeant, and this is classified to the top level. If you choose not to take the assignment after a two week training program, you will never be able to mention it to anyone, understand?"_

"_No sir." She said. It was better than saying that she was extremely confused._

_He sighed, appearing to recognize her confusion but in no mood to stop. "Ok then, the slow explanation. First of all, aliens do in fact exist. You killed one earlier today. The next thing I'm going to tell you starts in Giza, Egypt during an archeological dig in 1928…"_

"He put me on a probation period at the Cheyenne base." Cally continued. "This is where all the interesting stuff starts. This is where all the historical stuff starts as well. Because of this, I'm going to give you the standard speech. It'll raise more questions, but it will answer a ton as well." Cally took a sip of juice and they patiently waited for her to continue.

"During an archeological excavation at the pyramids of Giza in 1928, a large ring of an unknown metal was unearthed. No one had seen anything like it before, from its chemical composition to the symbols on it. Years later, a group of scientists figured out what it was. It was called a Stargate."

"A what?" Tosh asked, her eyebrows knitting together.

"I'm getting to it!" Cally said, "The Stargate is a device capable of instantaneous interstellar stellar travel."

Jack blinked, and then looked at the Doctor suspiciously. So this was how Cally had gotten off world. The Doctor smiled back briefly and Jack nearly threw a peanut at the Time Lord. The conniving time traveler had already known!

"That's impossible!" Both Myles and Tosh said at the same time, and then looked at each other in surprise.

Cally shook her head, the tips of her hair brushing her glass of orange juice. "No, it's not. Tosh, why do you think that it's impossible?"

"Getting to another planet, another galaxy instantaneously is impossible!" The technology expert of Torchwood said, waving a hand to illustrate her point. "For that… I don't know that you'd need, but-"

Cally smiled widely, in a way that made Tosh suspicious. "You'd need a wormhole."

Ianto put his glass down, remembering the conversation they'd had with Cally in the pub the day before the shootout with Menthu. Tosh and Cally had been talking about wormholes, and Cally had understood what Tosh was saying.

Owen looked cross, and bit his lip. "Too much science fiction my arse."

Cally shrugged, and then winced when the movement jarred her ribs. "So I lied. Sue me."

Katie opened her mouth to ask what was going on, and was immediately filled in by Gwen, who looked over Cally in the same way that Ianto was doing, in appraisal.

Tosh momentarily gaped at the woman in front of her, mouth opening and closing rapidly as the revelation pun through her mind. She then said, "So you've been…"

"Through wormholes?" Cally smiled, and there was a whole new depth to Cally's smile, different from the ones they'd always seen from her. She looked as if she was remembering something behind her brown eyes. "Getting my molecules ripped apart and jammed together again? Only twice a week for seven years."

There was silence at the table. Cally was still smiling, but dreamily, languidly, unaware of the shock that had befallen the others. She was remembering her teams as they walked on the soil of other planets. Martha, Jack and the Doctor were all acquiring their own languid smiles. They knew what Cally's smile stood for, the beauty of the universe.

"What is it like?" Gwen asked softly, not wanting to disturb Cally's memories. "Going to other planets?"

Cally blinked, brought back to the real world, and the corner of her mouth drifted upward for a moment. "There is nothing like it." She managed to say after a moment, just as softly as Gwen had spoken. "It is so beautiful, and yet it can be terrifying, happy and strange…"

Her voice trailed off, but Martha's replaced it. "You can find yourself walking among people, species; that you never thought existed. You can stand on the shores of a beach thousands, billions of light years away from Earth, centuries from the year you were born, and you'll never be able to get over the fact that out there, you're so little, and yet so much."

Jack started speaking. "Nothing is ever the same, not when you step out there. Everything you'd ever known takes a back seat. Everything changes, you change. You start to see everything, every word, every phrase, every glance, and all of a sudden, it all has meaning. "

"You could spend lifetimes, just travelling, and you would never be able to see it all." The Doctor added, both Jack and Martha seeing a wistful gleam in his eye. "Everything changes, but everything stays the same. In time, in birth, in death. Lives come and they go, the galaxies turn, they dance, and you can feel it in your very blood. You learn to become part of it, aware of it, and once you take those first steps, you can never go back to who you thought you were before…"

Nothing was said for some time, though drinks were slowly picked up and sipped, until Myles spoke.

He was astonished at what Cally was saying, what they all were saying. That Cally, any human being had actually been to other planets, been to other _galaxies_ in his lifetime was practically unbelievable. He would not have believed it, couldn't have believed it until he'd seen Ian's eyes glow yellow in the Museum. The Doctor was an alien, which struck Myles too. He would not have picked that up in a million years. "Cally." He said, trying to grapple with this new information, holding his wife's hand. "The – the ancient Egyptians, they wouldn't have known how to use something like that…"

Cally swallowed some orange juice, put her glass down gently, and looked directly into his eyes. "No, but the Goa'uld would."

Katie shuddered, but said, "You mean those things travel-"

"The Goa'uld once ruled Earth." Cally said. "Hundreds of thousands of years before written language, they came in ships, through the Stargates, and adapted existing mythological systems to their own needs. When I said that they called themselves gods, I meant it. They enslaved much of Earth too." Cally looked back at the Doctor. "Most – not all – of the human or humanoid species I know of can trace their roots back to ancestors who were taken from Earth when the Goa'uld left the planet. The Jaffa, for example, used to be human."

"Why did they leave?" Victoria asked, leaning on Myles, trying to hide the shock. "The Goa'uld…"

"There was a human uprising." Cally said kindly. "Bad enough to make them think that leaving was the best option. The Stargate was buried, in an attempt to keep the Goa'uld from ever returning. When it was found in Giza, no one knew what the Stargate was, or what it was for. Though," Cally smirked. "That never stopped anyone."

"Wouldn't the Goa'uld have just built new Stargates?" Jack asked.

Cally shook her head. "No, the Goa'uld just use the Stargates, they never actually built them."

Matthew's forehead wrinkled as he tried to understand this. "But…"

"I'm getting to that!" Cally growled, and then ran a finger absent mindedly over the tabletop. "Now, what would you say if I told you that we were actually the second race of humans to evolve on this planet?"

There was a general outcry of disbelief; the Doctor was the most vocal of them all. "What?" The Doctor said. "That can't be right! I've visited this planet time and time again and-"

"Before there were humans hanging around?" Martha asked quizzically.

The Doctor paused, and then breathed out. "Well, not really. During the dinosaur ages certainly but…" He glanced sidelong as Cally. "Maybe… My memory is a little fuzzy, I think…"

Cally shook her head to stop him. "They didn't leave much of a trace on Earth when they left. We call them the Ancients. They left Earth, from what we know, because of a plague. They flew their city to the Pegasus galaxy."

Owen cleared his throat. "I'm sorry; I could have just sworn that you said that these Ancients _flew_ their city away from Earth."

Cally nodded, completely serious. "They did. I know that, because before I came to London, I lived in that same city." They were all looking disbelievingly at her. Cally slid a few pictures out of her photo album. "You would know the city as Atlantis"

Ianto shook his head. "Cally, that's impossible. Atlantis is a fictional city that sank on _Earth_."

"No, Ianto. It didn't. The Ancients sank the city on a planet called Lantea. Some of the Ancients came back to Earth and told the story to the humans living here, which is where the Earth myth came from. Like I said, I used to live there." She handed Ianto the first photo. "See?"

The photo was of four people, one of them was Cally. The most noticeable thing about the photo was the city behind the people. It was built of materials and architecture that Ianto had never seen, and he would have stared at it longer had Cally not handed him another photo, and he was forced to pass the first photo to his left.

The second photo was of Cally off – world. This was evident because of three moons in the background of the sky in the photo.

Once everyone had seen the photos, and they had been neatly placed back in the album, Cally smiled. "Believe me now?"

"I think it's a little hard not to." Matthew said his throat hoarse. Atlantis was _real_ and Cally _lived _there. "And I think I've just found my new hero."

Cally laughed at that. "I'm nothing special. My commanding officer and his team? They usually get into a ton of trouble. I did mention space vampires and their eating habits, right?"

Jack shuddered a little. The Pegasus Galaxy was definitely not a place he would be going. "So why can't people see you, and how does Chapman fit into all of this?"

"A couple of years ago, there were a group of people in Congress who decided that there needed to be a civilian group with some say in the Stargate program. So the International Oversight Advisory was created. Chapman is on the Advisory, so he's technically my boss."

"Wait, so other countries know about this – Stargate?" Asked Myles.

"Yes. Most of the bigger international players know about the Stargate." Cally said in affirmation, glancing forlornly at the bottom of her empty glass. That seemed to impress both Myles and Victoria... Victoria looked like she wanted to ask her own question but was cut off by Martha.

"Why did Chapman think you were blurry?"

Before she answered, Cally grabbed the paper bag that she'd had Martha take from her desk, and up ended it. Out of it tumbled a small flat cube, clear straight through, on a piece of black string.

"Like I said before, some of the Ancients came back to Earth after Atlantis sank. They intermarried with the humans who were living on Earth. Much of the Ancient technology that we know of can only be used by someone with a specific gene, we call it the ATA gene; the Ancient Technology Activation gene." Cally looked at Martha. "Pick up the necklace."

Martha glanced at Cally, and then at the Doctor, who nodded, and so she picked it up. Nothing happened. Martha glanced at Cally, who shook her head, and told Martha to pass the necklace to the next person. By the time the necklace had reached Jack, nothing had happened when anyone had held the necklace.

Jack offered it to Cally. She held off from saying anything for a moment, and looked around at them. "Well, now that we know no one else has the gene…."

She picked up the cube in Jack's hand. Within the first touch, the cube began to glow a bright, white light. The rest of the table stared at the necklace, as Cally held it out for them to see. "As you can see, I have the ATA gene."

Tosh practically squealed and pushed a disgruntled Owen to the side in order to grasp Cally's outstretched hand. She pulled Cally's hand towards her, over the table, in interest. "This is wicked!" Jack and Gwen both smiled at the completely enthralled smile on the normally quiet Tosh's face. "And this is all because you have ancestors who were Ancients?"

Cally laughed at Tosh's expression, and the fact that Tosh hadn't let go of her hand yet, but was now lifting the necklace in and out of Cally's hand, watching it turn on and off as she did so. "Yes, I don't actually have a really strong gene, by commanding officer can turn things on by walking into rooms, well, it seems like it. The gene is apparently really rare."

The Doctor cocked his head to the side and appraised her. "Not rare enough then!"

Cally shrugged, her hand still in Tosh's care, but now Matthew had taken over the examination. "You'd be surprised. Back on Atlantis, the people who have the gene are pretty involved in doing a lot of the stuff that happens on base, because there are so few of us with the gene, a strong gene. There is a lot of stuff we've found that the Ancients used every day, but we have no idea what half of these things do."

Jack's brow furrowed. "So they have you…"

Cally breathed in deeply, covering a sigh. "Test things out by touching them. Most of us in the rotation call it guinea pig duty."

Tosh dropped Cally's hand suddenly, the necklace switching off as it fell from Cally's hand and onto the table. "Isn't that really, really dangerous?"

The Doctor's eyebrows had bunched together, and when he spoke his voice was low and disapproving. "Yes, it is."

Cally shrugged again. "Nothing happens, most of the time."

"But this time it did." The Doctor said voice tight.

"Yeah." Cally went quiet for a moment, staring at the tabletop. "It was my shift on guinea pig duty, so I went to the lab. All it was, there was just this little wrist device. Doctor McKay thought it was a heart monitoring device, so he strapped it on my wrist, I activated it…" Cally's voice drifted off and she was staring at the table top again.

"And what happened?" Matthew asked.

"Nothing happened." Cally's head came up so she could look at Matthew. "All of a sudden… I tapped scientists on the shoulder, shoved them, starting singing Christmas songs at the top of my lungs, I even stole ships! Nothing! All of a sudden, it's like I literally don't exist."

"But we can see you." Owen pointed out helpfully.

Cally stuck her tongue out at him. "Yes, and believe me, I'm glad you can. From what I can gather, it's because of the Stargate. The mineral that makes up the Stargate is called naquadah, when you go through the Gate, when you're anywhere near it, you get naquadah in your blood. The more of it, the longer you've been around the Stargate. You've all never been near the Stargate, so you don't have naquadah is your systems, and so you can see me."

"But the people who are important to you can't…" Gwen said quietly. "How long has it been since you… since this happened?"

Cally paused, eyes blank for a moment as she thought. "Nine months and three days exactly, give or take days when I was unconscious in the hospital."

They all stared at her. To have been without people who cared where you were, for that long was unconscionable for most of them. Cally realized that they were staring at her and she scowled, the corners of her mouth turning down. "I'm fine, ok!"

Myles gave a small cough that implied what he didn't want to say. Cally glared at him. "Ok, mostly fine. I will admit that I had no idea what to do with myself up until the moment that Myles found me lingering around the Egyptian display cases. By the way, some of those items are _not_ of earthly origin."

The Museum staff, as well as most of Torchwood stared at her again, and Cally blushed. "What? I fought Goa'uld for a long time! I can tell what is Ancient Egyptian and what is it! Half the papyrus in the storeroom isn't Egyptian! It just looks like Egyptian! Menthu either showed back up on Earth from another planet, or from one of the canopic jars in the archives. There is so much stuff down there, anything could have happened! It needs to be filed by someone who _knows what they're looking for_! Err, no offense, guys." She said in apology to the interns.

Katie nodded. "From what's been going on, I'm more than inclined to agree with you." Matthew nodded emphatically to back up Katie's statement. Both looked a little shell shocked, after all, what might have happened to Ian could have happened to them just as easily.

"Is there some sort of a system? To look through museum archives for dangerous things?" Myles asked curiously.

Cally shook her head. "Not that I'm aware of. Then again," she smiled sheepishly. "I hadn't stepped back into this galaxy up until five months after the accident." She frowned. "A system like that would be nice." There was a pause as she thought of what would happen if a system was created, and then she scanned the faces at the table. "Well, now… I guess… now you know everything."

There wasn't much to say to that, though there were still a million plus questions in everyone else's minds, but wouldn't say, not now.

Quick as a flash, the Doctor reached across the table and grasped Cally's hands, startling her. "Let's go!"

Cally blinked, and then bit her lip in amusement. "Uh, where exactly?"She asked.

"Will this be a joint field trip?" Jack asked cheekily. "Because if it isn't, I claim the right to be chaperone."

Torchwood glared at him collectively, and Jack shrugged, trying to appear innocent as Martha hid a smile.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Why don't we pay a little visit to the Pegasus Galaxy?" He asked Cally, who immediately started gaping.

"Yes, everybody." He said before Jack could pipe up again.

"Even us?" Matthew indicated the Museum staff with a circular motion of his hand, a sound bordering on reverence accompanying his hushed tone.

"That's what I said."

Cally was shaken out of her amazement. "I'm sorry; I could have sworn you said something about visiting the _Pegasus Galaxy_." She asked, and her voice had taken on a pained quality, which everyone immediately noticed. "How exactly do you plan to get there?"

* * *

Russell Chapman had been in his office for most of the day, trying to figure out what to do with Captain Cally Everet. By two in the afternoon, he's lined up a whole new career for the unsuspecting young lady, unknowingly doing what Myles had done to her a month or so earlier.

He was certain that each of the sixty two letters he'd mailed to Cheyenne Mountain had begun their slow journey to the Pegasus galaxy.

He frowned at no one in particular. Figuring out what to do with Doctor Daniel Jackson and General Jack O'Neill would be far more trouble, he was sure of it.

* * *

End Chapter 22

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, I really appreciate it!

Flames and reviews are always accepted.


	23. All Things Real and Beautiful

No, I am not dead! I live and this chapter is here to prove it! I (once again) apologize for the very long time in the updates! A lot of things have changed over the past year, and I've only just had time to work on anything at all! In any case, I hope you enjoy this chapter, excuse the vague promiscuous references, and review! I have already started the next chapter, so you'll have it just after New Years!

Disclaimer: My name is Captain Cally Everet, and I have crossed universes to inform you all that Time's Whisper does not actually own the worlds and the characters used in this story. They are borrowed lovingly and no profit is made from them. That being said, could someone please tell her to stop trying to break the barrier between universes? Thanks. -CCE

* * *

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 23: All Things Real and Beautiful

Cally was skeptical of the Doctor's intentions when he'd first suggested they go to Atlantis, seeing as breaking into the SGC was more than a little frowned upon. It wasn't that she didn't want to go. Seeing the city after almost a year would be like going home, even if it was just for a short time.

The idea that the Doctor had a ship was even more interesting to her; the first reason was because it solved the problem of getting to the Stargate. Taking everyone through the SGC would have been a whole lot of trouble. They would have had to hold hands as they walked through or something, which would have been more than a little awkward. The second reason the Doctor's ship intrigued her was that it apparently could hide in plain sight, something that ships like the Puddlejumpers could definitely not do.

The fact that the Doctor lead them back to the Museum explaining that it was where he'd parked his ship, for some reason wasn't a surprise to her. It seemed like London was crawling with aliens, and she had met the Doctor and Martha in the Museum in the first place. It wasn't until the Doctor led them up to the giant telephone box in the atrium– an object the museum staff had been sure was an art piece – that Cally came to the conclusion that the spaceman was playing her for a fool.

Cally stood, arms crossed, gazing inscrutably at the blue box in front of her and then shared an inscrutable look with Matthew, then looked back at the phone box. "You've got to be kidding me." She said after the two minutes when she hadn't been able to speak out of sheer despondency, and then glanced disbelievingly at the Doctor. "_This _is your spaceship?"

The Doctor was grinning, and disturbingly, so were Martha and Jack. Widely, like cats with a cage full of canaries. "Yup."

Cally looked back at the police box and shrugged. "I'm pretty fairly sure I've seen weirder." She saw Matthew splutter out of the corner of her eye, and felt rather than saw that Katie and Myles were gaping at her. The employees of Torchwood groaned. The gauntlet had been thrown.

The smiles on The Doctor, Jack and Martha's faces grew brighter, which didn't assuage Cally's fears in the least. The Doctor walked to the door and pulled a key out of one of his seemingly bottomless pockets, then turned it in the lock.

To Cally's surprise, the door creaked open, and there was light coming through it. Cally raised an eyebrow at the grinning Time Lord, but only walked inside after the Doctor had bowed and gestured towards the telephone box. "After you, Miss Captain Everet."

The Doctor glanced with a twinkle in his eyes at Jack and Martha, who were bouncing on their heels; they were so sure that they knew what was coming. They looked at Torchwood and the rest of the Museum staff. They looked spooked.

What normally would happen would be that the person that the Doctor had designated to travel with him would step out of the TARDIS, mouth open wide, circle the ship for confirmation of the fact that the TARDIS was a wooden box, and then declare the impossibility of it all. In fact, the time honored words that were uttered were usually "it's bigger on the inside!" They were words that stated the obvious, and the Doctor never tired of hearing it.

Three minutes later, Cally stumbled out of the TARDIS. She gaped once at the Doctor's smiling face, snapped her jaw shut, and with the look of someone completely amazed, practically threw herself back in. Jack and Martha looked at each other, dumbfounded, then at the Doctor, whose lips curled in amusement. "I think that's the longest anyone's been in there before coming back out." He said, sounding a little surprised.

"She didn't even take the customary walk around it." Jack pointed out, sounding just a little impressed, and a little disappointed.

Cally stepped out of the time ship backwards, tapped the wooden door for verification and started at the Doctor. "It's bigger-"

"On the inside!" Jack, Martha and the Doctor chorused along with her.

"And that's what I was waiting to hear!" The Doctor laughed when Cally glared at them.

Cally proceeded to ignore the threesome and pointed to the inside of the ship, looking at Victoria, the Museum staff and Torchwood. "That is seriously, seriously, awesome." Cally looked back at the Doctor, the excitement shining in her eyes, making her blue irises twinkle. "I take back the having seen weirder things comment. Your ship isn't weird, it's just downright cool." She grinned when the Doctor accepted the compliment. "What kind of ship is it?"

"The TARDIS." The Doctor said, patting the worn blue sides of the Victorian police box lovingly. "It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space, and I've had her for a very, very long time."

"Can we see?" Matthew asked hesitantly.

* * *

By the time the Doctor had locked the TARDIS door, with everyone firmly inside, half an hour had gone past. In which the rest of Torchwood and the Museum staff had each completed their own – customary -gaping walks around the ship, and spouting the requisite "It's bigger on the inside" speech. Cally had been forced to laugh when Jack asked her if she wanted to do the same, and practically led her in a circle around the TARDIS, whether she wanted to or not.

Myles in particular, was still having a little bit of difficulty with the concept of the TARDIS. He'd actually taken two trips in and out of the TARDIS. The poor elderly archeologist was sitting on one of the cots in the control room, having been lead there by his wife. Victoria was holding him, trying to calm him down. He was trying to be quiet, so not to draw any attention to himself. He had been horrified by the attack on the Museum, but for some reason, this was horrifying in a new and uncomfortable way. He'd thought, until Cally had explained it, that the Goa'uld were impossible, but a ship that defied the known (at least to humans) laws of physics? This was truly impossible. He felt a pair of calloused hands clasp one of his hands. Myles opened his eyes to see Cally kneeling next to him, an expression of concern covering her features.

"You ok?" She asked.

Myles shuddered again, taking Cally's hand and squeezing it lightly, trying to be reassuring. "I'm alright." He glanced over his shoulder at Victoria, and smiled bravely. "I mean it."

Cally and Victoria briefly shared a look that clearly said "He's not ok at all, and we'd better keep an eye on him."

Myles caught the look. "I am fine! I just need to… think things over."

They gave him a look – between a glare and a sneer – that told him that until he was _really_ ok, they would be monitoring him. They had him pegged. Myles huffed, though he felt a little better.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had walked over to the TARDIS console where Martha and Jack were leaning comfortably and chatting, quite at home in the alien surroundings. He was giving everyone time to get used to the ship before the real fun began. The Torchwood employees and the Museum staff, aside from Myles and Victoria, were more or less huddled together in one corner near the other side of the console. The Torchwood staff was a little more relaxed than the Museum personnel because they dealt with alien things all the time, but not much more relaxed. Cally, after leaving Myles and Victoria, started roaming around and trying to peak into other areas of the TARDIS, without much avail as the sentient ship kept closing the doors on her. Martha and Jack eventually started trying to hide their sniggers as Cally started pleading with the ship, making rash promises.

"Please can I see what's behind this one?" Cally begged. "I promise not to coat anything in honey, or trash anything. I'll even tidy up if you want me to!"

"Oi! That's my job!" The Doctor protested, ignoring the little buzz in his head that was the TARDIS informing him that, even if it was his job, he hadn't been performing it for several centuries. "Is everyone ready to go?"

He didn't wait for a reply from Cally, just strolled the short distance from where he'd been talking to Jack and Martha over to the TARDIS console and started thwacking things with – Cally snorted because it looked cartoonish - a mallet. Jack and Martha however, took more immediate action. Jack snatched Cally by the back of her collar and dragged her over to the railings where Martha was now gripping the cold metal. Myles and Victoria quickly joined them.

Martha waved the other travelers over. "You're going to want to hold onto something, trust me."

Automatically, eight sets of hands were grasping the metal rail. They were learning to take warnings very seriously.

Jack, however, had something very different in mind. He in turn, yanked Ianto by the collar and positioned his lover in front of him, so that his back was against Jack's chest, tucked under the former con-man's left arm. Cally, who was still being held by her collar with protest, he tucked under his right and smiled down at them, not offering them a chance of movement.

Cally glowered and rubbed the back of her neck. "I can stand on my own, you know."

Jack pouted prettily. "But that's not as much fun, right Yan?"

Ianto was trying to hide a smile as he leaned back into Jack. "Not as much fun at all." He said pointedly, looking at Cally.

Cally felt herself go red and quickly turned around to grab the rail in front of her. Just in time, because the Doctor, full of the odd energy he seemed to always have, had finally finished hitting things and twirled to face them with much aplomb. With the mallet over one shoulder he smiled at them. "On your marks, get set…." He pulled a lever down. "Go!"

The time rotor began to wheeze, and within seconds, the TARDIS violently lurched to one side. Everyone but Martha, Jack and the Doctor lost their footing. Jack looked immensely smug as he held onto his two 'charges'. The Doctor ended up face to face with Cally and beamed at her shaken demeanor.

"Is this supposed to happen?" Cally yelled over the noise as the TARDIS bucked again and went sideways in the time stream, looking frantic. This was _not_ how most ships travelled. Puddlejumpers were luxury liners compared to this.

"This?" The Doctor yelled back, appearing to be shocked at the suggestion, except that he was holding the railing with one hand and seemed to be bouncing about happily with the TARDIS' movements. "This is calm! Barely a ripple! Not even a slight bout of turbulence! Nothing to complain about!"

The TARDIS dipped sideways.

When the time ship righted itself again, the Doctor was still beaming like a kid on Christmas, Myles looked like he was about to be sick, and Martha had been pulled into Jack's hug. Matthew and Katie didn't seem to be ruffled in the least, but both had started to treat the whole thing like a rollercoaster, and were mirroring the Doctor's maniac glee. Cally thought that this boded badly.

Just as rapidly as the trip had seemed to start, the TARDIS slammed to a sudden halt, throwing everyone but the Doctor to the floor. He stood amidst the groaning travelers with a satisfaction that bordered on the criminal. "Now, I think we've arrived! Just above the city of Atlantis, in the Pegasus Galaxy, at what I think is cruising altitude."

Cally lifted her head up from where she'd landed, on Owen's chest. "Cruising altitude?" She asked in confusion. Why would they be at cruising altitude?

"Well, we couldn't just land. Imagine what would happen if you wandered away from the TARDIS? We'd probably get attacked by your people, guns and everything." He paused, musing. "You know, that happens quite a lot."

Both Jack and Martha snorted. "Yes, it really does," they chorused. Everyone but Myles, who looked close to throwing up, rolled their eyes. They were done trying to understand the inside jokes.

* * *

There was an unusual silence in the TARDIS, from the moment the Doctor had opened the doors onto the open air above the Ancient city of Atlantis. Cally stood the farthest out the TARDIS, leaning against the doorpost, and the Doctor subtly tweaked the force field so that she would not fall an extremely long distance into the Lantean Ocean. She stood there, watching the city that she'd left behind glitter gloriously in the sunlight. Her hair whipped around her face, and the light she watched reflected off the city and into her eyes. The Doctor observed Cally as a small but happy smile drifted across the former air force officer's face and stayed there.

"It's beautiful." Tosh said quietly, from the midst of the group behind Cally who were staring at the city below, breaking the silence.

"That it is." Cally said gently back, smiling at her city. "You should see it when the sun comes up and light hits the city and you're near a balcony during the morning shift…" Her voice trailed off as she looked over her shoulder, embarrassed. "Err; I think you have to be there to actually appreciate it."

"What are those?" Matthew asked pointing to two little squares that were rising from the tallest of the city's towers.

Cally straightened and grinned. "Puddlejumpers!" She cried, completely overjoyed, and it could be heard in her voice.

"What?" Owen asked. It sounded like a different name for Wellington boots.

"They're ships! They're our version of airplanes, but they can fly in space." Cally was practically bouncing the way the Doctor had been a little while earlier. "Just the most amazing ships to fly in existence!" She glanced at the Doctor. "Other than this one." She said apologetically.

The Doctor looked mollified, though Cally was a little disturbed that he was stroking the TARDIS, as if soothing it. To avoid the off chance of being hit by a stray Puddlejumper, he pressed a few levers and they dropped closer to the city, so that even the faces of personnel outside were visible.

Suddenly Cally's face lit up. "Hey! I know them!" She pointed excitedly down towards what she knew to be the west pier of the city, down by the water. Gwen had to grab Cally up the waist because Cally was too busy leaning out of the TARDIS to notice that she'd practically fallen out of the ship in her joy.

"That's Doctor Weir! She's the leader of the expedition! Ooh! And Doctor McKay is there too, see?"

"Isn't Doctor McKay that one who put the device on your arm?" Owen asked, sounding indifferent, but when Cally looked at him, he was glaring down at the smaller of the two figures below.

Cally blinked at him, a little surprised at the ferocity, and then shrugged, also surveying the generally cranky scientist. "It wasn't his fault." She could feel their eyes snap to her form, but didn't look at them. "No one knows what those devices do sometimes. It's dangerous work, especially for us guinea pigs." She shook her head. "But that's what we signed up for. We knew, that first trip through the gate to Atlantis might be a one way trip." She finally looked at them, blue eyes hard. "I _volunteered _to go. I wanted to go somewhere no one had ever been before." An amused look passed her lips and she smirked. "Sort of like Star Trek, I guess. But it _wasn't McKay's fault._"

She knew they wouldn't believe her, but her melancholy diminished a few seconds later when another group of people came onto the pier, carrying lunch trays. "Hey!" She yelled, and Gwen had to grab her again. "It's my team!" She indulged the illogical need to wave frantically at them for a moment, before realizing that it was futile and put her arm down. She glared momentarily at a limb that was visible to her, but invisible to those who mattered, and then looked back down at the little group on the pier.

She pointed to them individually. "The blonde is Major David Morrison, our team leader, the brunette beside him is Mike Elbert, the second in command. Eiichi Takarei is our scientist. He's a biologist." Cally frowned slightly, and looked a little wistful. By rights, she should have been down there, eating whatever mystery meat was served in the Atlantis mess that week.

"You miss them." Jack observed.

Cally snorted. "How can I not? They're practically my _family_. We spent holidays together, birthdays, and everything." She smiled. "Your team becomes your family. That's practically the first thing you learn at the SGC. Not just through word of mouth, but also through what happens when you have to protect each other off-world. You must experience that at Torchwood, right?"

The smiles of those who were a part of Torchwood became a little strained.

* * *

Cally was incredibly subdued when they exited the TARDIS, back on Earth and in the Museum. The Doctor had timed it so that they landed a few minutes after they had taken off, so that no one would be too unnerved as they would have been if no time had passed over their journey at all.

Matthew came over and slung and arm over her shoulders. "Don't look so much like the world has ended. You stopped that, remember?"

Cally flashed a small smile at the younger man. "This time." She said. "Do you know how often that happens? That the world almost comes to an end? Practically monthly."

Myles looked a little green, as did Victoria. "I'm not sure you should have told us that." Victoria gulped. "In fact, I'm going to do my best and pretend you didn't mean that."

Behind them, the Doctor shook his head at the folly. "You humans, so panicky." He murmured, though Jack had heard him. In all honesty, it was hard for the Doctor, even after all this time, to acknowledge that for humans, some knowledge was much too upsetting, and could destabilize their very societies.

Cally shrugged, knowing that she couldn't argue sense into Victoria. The government's own stance on the matter was not to tell the general public, and she'd lived by that rule a long time. Breaking it now was a special circumstance. From the moment Menthu had entered the lives of the Museum staff, they were an exception to the rule.

Matthew and Katie looked a little more pensive at Cally's statement, mulling it over. The Torchwood staff had known the reality of Cally's words for a long time, and had no reason to refute it. Finally Katie responded. "I hate to accept it." She said quietly. "But I can't ignore that a few days ago; I was hurt by something from another planet. If there is one threat like Menthu, why shouldn't there be others?" Katie looked to Matthew. "Right?"

Matthew nodded, his arm still slung over Cally's shoulders. "Right. Nothing us little Museum interns can do about it."

Cally voted not to respond to that. It sounded too much like Matthew was asking if there was anything he could do to stop it, and she wasn't sure she wanted him or Katie in the line of fire again. Inventing a system for museums to identify what was alien and what wasn't seemed to be a possibility, but she had no idea how to start such a program, and didn't know if Matthew would want to be involved. Instead she turned around to face Jack and the Doctor. They were the nearest authority figures she could think of, and she counted the Doctor because he seemed to be an authority on human matters, no matter that he wasn't human. "So what happens to me now?" She asked. "I would love to remain at the Museum, but…" She wasn't sure if that was viable now.

There was a flicker of something in Jack's eyes that Cally couldn't identify, but she was then distracted by the Doctor's shrug. "Russell Chapman mentioned that you should go to see him once you've explained the situation to us. Apparently he has some idea of what to do."

The flare in Jack's eyes appeared again, and he seemed to be ready to say something, which the Doctor interrupted, as if sensing Jack's sudden determination. "But I think that can wait until tomorrow." He beamed. "Let's get everyone home – relatively speaking."

When the rest of the group moved off, Jack and the Doctor stayed behind a few moments. When even the Torchwood team was out of earshot, Jack whipped to face the Doctor and started to hiss furiously. "Why did you stop me? I was going to-" His demand was abruptly cut off when the Doctor interrupted him again.

"You were going to ask Cally to join Torchwood." The Doctor stated simply, his face having gone blank.

"Yes!" Jack hissed loudly, furious.

"Take it up with Chapman." The Doctor advised him. "Cally's more apt to actually listen to him because she's under his command, and I think, based on Cally's case, that Chapman may need to give Cally wiggle room. Offering Chapman an opening for Cally in Torchwood might help his plans for her."

As much as Jack wanted to disagree, the Doctor was right. Cally would never have accepted Torchwood on her own. She needed to be back in the field, but she might not be sure that Torchwood was the right place for her to be. Jack was sure that she was, and besides that, he knew that having another member on the team who had more exposure to aliens that even Ianto would be ultimately beneficial. Jack finally nodded. He would go talk to Chapman first thing in the morning.

The Doctor now smiled and pointed towards the rapidly disappearing travelers. "I think we need to go join them now." Martha was looking at them from a distance, quizzically.

Jack let the Doctor walk ahead of him as he mulled over what the Doctor had said. He also had a nagging suspicion that the Doctor knew something about Cally Everet, specifically why Chapman's plans for the former resident of Atlantis were so important, and the Doctor wasn't telling. Jack shook his head. He was getting paranoid.

The Doctor hummed absentmindedly ahead of him. It sounded like the theme to "Mission Impossible".

* * *

Thanks to everyone who kindly reviews!

-TS


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